Tufted Duck 
59 
On large lakes, like Loch Leven, where Tufted intend to breed, most of the adult birds 
are paired off by the end of March, and keep closely together during the early part of the 
breeding season. There are, however, many small lakes and ponds where Tufteds breed, 
which are not frequented by the birds in winter, owing probably to the fact that they have 
been frozen. On these the Tufteds arrive in one small flock late in February or early in 
March, and at once commence courtship and pairing. As soon as they are paired they 
become very tame, and it adds much to the charm of a day's spring fishing on Loch 
Leven to see these charming birds, with hosts of other ducks, circling round the boat, and 
taking but little notice of intruders in their sanctuary. 
Considering the fact that Tufted Ducks pair early, it is somewhat curious that they are 
not by any means early breeders. It is not long before they seek out a suitable nesting site, 
but it is generally well into May before the females think of nesting. The site chosen 
is generally only a few yards from the water, often amid dense herbage, or the top of 
a sloping bank on some island, tongue of land, or embankment. At Patshull eight or ten 
nests are annually placed on a low dyke separating two small lakes. The distance of each 
nest from the water would be two to five yards, and the site hidden in rushes and coarse 
grass, where a few stunted willows grow. I have found them with little covering but 
a few grass blades, and at other times, some twenty yards from the water, in a thicket 
of willows, Scots fir, bramble, and reeds. A favourite position is in centre of a tuft 
of rushes, only slightly raised above the level of the lake. Naumann says they will travel 
as far as eighty to one hundred paces from the water to make the nest in a clump of sedge 
or osier, rushes or tufts of grass, in places once wet and now dry. 
Tufted Ducks will sometimes choose very curious nesting sites. Mr. P. D. Malloch 
sends me a photograph of a nest, with six eggs, which he found upon the high wall of 
the old castle, on the Castle Island, Loch Leven, in June 1900. The bird must have flown 
directly up to her nest from the waters, 80 or 100 feet below. There is no doubt 
that diving ducks usually swim in to the land near their nest, and then, after carefully 
surveying the landscape, walk into their nests. But this is by no means the invariable 
practice, for I have noticed, by personal observation, that many of them fly directly in from 
the lake and alight close to the nest. This fact Mr. C. Farrcn has also recorded in 
Country Life, May 14, 19 10. 
In England female Tufted Ducks generally commence to lay about May 18-20. 
In Scotland the time is generally a week to ten days later, whilst in Germany they 
commence to lay at the beginning of June. The nest itself has usually a somewhat slight 
under layer of dry rushes or bent grass and bits of sedge; the upper parts are chiefly 
loosely-woven fine blades of dry grass. The basin in the centre has a depth of 14 centi- 
metres. The usual number of eggs is 8 to 10, but sometimes many more are laid. Thus 
clutches of 16 to 17 are recorded from Caithness (T. E. Buckley); 14 from Ireland (R. J. 
Ussher; Newton mentions a case of 21. Mr. F. C. R. Jourdain has taken nests with 15, 
II, 12, 16, and 18 eggs, but considers that, in the last instance, it was a case of two ducks 
laying in the same nest. In a note to me he says : " I once saw in Derbyshire a female 
Tufted Duck sitting on the top of a pile of no fewer than 28 eggs, which she was quite 
unable to cover, but believe that in this case about five ducks were laying in the same nest." 
E. C. Stuart Baker mentions an instance of 40 eggs being found in one nest, but does not 
