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Living World: Dabbling Ducks

Up to half of all pintail in northwest Europe rely on the UK’s estuaries and wetlands during winter

01/03/2015

Dabbling Ducks

BBC Radio 4 - Living World, Dabbling Ducks

Chris Sperring visits Gloucestershire to find out why ducks 'dabble'.

Chris Sperring visits the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Gloucestershire to find out why ducks such as pintail, teal and mallard 'dabble'.

In winter, the UK's estuaries and wetlands play host to many species of 'dabbling,' or surface feeding, ducks. Chris Sperring visits the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire to find out more about them. In the company of Richard Hearn, Head of Species Monitoring for the Trust, he sees flocks of wigeon and hears their 'whistling' calls.

Although teal are resident in the British Isles, their numbers are swelled in winter by a migrant population that take advantage of milder weather and a plentiful food source found in wetlands. Chris also comes close to the most elegant of dabbling ducks, the pintail, and encounters the UK's most common species of duck, the mallard.

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