THE TUFTED DUCK 



FULIGULA CRISTATA 



LOCAL names in surrounding counties : 



STATUS IN BRITISH AVIFAUNA : A fairly common and 

 widely distributed winter visitor, breeding locally 

 throughout our islands. 



RADIAL DISTRIBUTION WITHIN FIFTEEN MILES OF ST. 

 PAUL'S : The Tufted Duck is observed every winter in 

 some part or another of the Metropolitan area. I 

 strongly suspect that wild birds occasionally join the 

 wildfowl on the Serpentine and other ornamental waters, 

 and it is a more or less regular visitor to the larger 

 reservoirs, Kingsbury, the Welsh Harp, and so forth. 

 I have seen this bird on the Penn Ponds in Richmond 

 Park ; it frequents at times the large lake in Wimbledon 

 Park ; whilst I have records of it from sheets of water 

 in the Wembley and Northolt districts. Some localities 

 are much more favoured than others, whilst the numbers 

 vary a good deal in successive winters. It is just one 

 of those species that may be casually met with in winter 

 on almost any large expanse of water anywhere within 

 our limits. The Tring Reservoirs, some thirty miles 

 from London, are a favourite winter resort of the Tufted 

 Duck, and it is very probable that some of the individuals 

 seen on the waters of our northern suburbs are wanderers 

 from this locality. On the Essex side I may mention 

 Wanstead as a resort of this species. 



Those Tufted Ducks that winter in the British Islands 

 migrate to them in October or November, and retire 

 in March and April. The bird migrates at night, and 

 during its stay with us is not only gregarious, but often 

 consorts with other species, and frequents fresh water 

 as well as the coast. Its habits are much the same as 

 those of the preceding, but it is more nocturnal, and 

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