17 Tuesday Dec 2024
Every couple of years we are fortunate to be visited by a passing, or lost, Long-tailed duck, and 2024 has been one of those years. In mid January this handsome juvenile touched down then lingered in Cardiff Bay for a week or so, and it was a real treat to see him on several occasions, a real highlight of my birding year (What a dude!, 27 January).
27 Saturday Jan 2024
With the slicked-up feathers on top of his head, the dark ear muffs, the stylish plumage in 50 shades of grey, black and white, this juvenile Long-tailed duck is quite the sophisticated dude, don’t you think? He’s a first winter bird, born last summer, so hasn’t yet got the long tail his species is named for but that will soon grow in.
He’s been hanging out near the Barrage in Cardiff Bay for about a week, spending most of his time around the string of orange buoys in front of the sluices, diving frequently in and around those buoys then startling the perching Black-headed gulls when he pops up right next to them. The Coots don’t much like this foreigner in their patch either, but then Coots are ornery about most things.
02 Saturday Jan 2021
Posted in birds
This Long-tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis) was first spotted in Cardiff Bay by a local birder on 19 December, so I walked that way the following day but only managed very distant views of it as a black-and-white dot feeding far out in the Bay.
Luckily for me, though the duck wasn’t seen for several days, it appears to have lingered unseen, perhaps amongst the reed beds, until it was re-found on 27 December. So, on the 29th’s walk, I went looking once again and struck it lucky, as the bird was with the large Tufted duck flock in the Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve.
Initially, it was very distant but then it suddenly decided to fly over very close to where I was standing on the viewing platform. Almost as if it had ‘ants in its pants’ or was being nibbled from below, it acted very unsettled, flying back and forth a few times, before disappearing out beyond the moored boats, into the River Taff. What a treat it was to have such close views of this charming little winter visitor.
23 Thursday Feb 2017
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay, Clangula hyemalis, duck that yodels, Long-tailed duck
The Long-tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis) is an uncommon visitor to south Wales – the RSPB website recommends looking for them ‘from seawatching points around the coast in winter, particularly in northern Scotland, Shetland and Orkney’ – but this one has been over-wintering in Cardiff Bay with a raft of 8 Greater scaup (Aythya marila), and I finally got to see it a few days ago. (I had tried a couple of times previously but on those occasions the Scaup had Coots and the odd Great crested grebe accompanying them.)
The Long-tailed duck is a smallish sea duck that dives for the small fish, crabs and bivalve molluscs that make up its diet. It doesn’t breed in Britain but heads north to the Arctic regions, to Iceland and areas in northern Europe and northern America, so I guess this little guy (only the males have the really long tails) will be heading off soon to find a mate.
I didn’t hear this particular duck make any sound but apparently their call sounds something like a yodel and that is reflected in the names it’s known by in the northern isles of Shetland and Orkney: calaw, caloo and coal-and-candlelight are all derived from the sounds the duck makes. I think I would’ve been rather surprised to hear a duck yodel but I certainly feel privileged to have been able to sit and enjoy watching it.
with two of its Scaup friends, a male (front) and female (behind)
earthstar 
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