As a common rule, birders don’t like hybrids. For a begin, they could wrestle to determine them, whereas secondly they will’t even tick them. On BirdTrack, the British equal of e-Fowl, the checklist of birds offered does permit for Tufted Duck x Ferruginous Duck to be recorded, however not Tufted Duck x Pochard. Nevertheless, that’s precisely what I guessed the duck swimming in entrance of me needed to be. It was consorting with massive flock of primarily drake Pochards, and as its behaviour was an identical to its companions, as was its measurement and form, it didn’t instantly stand out. Nevertheless, there had been stories of a Scaup blended in with the flock, which at first look I believed this hen could be. As quickly as I checked out it extra carefully it was fairly clear that it wasn’t a scaup of any species, regardless of its resemblance to a North American Lesser Scaup. The latter, by the best way, is a uncommon however common vagrant to the British Isles, first recorded right here in 1987, however seen yearly lately.
My hen actually had the peaked crown attribute of a Lesser Scaup; the feathers on its head regarded black at a distance, whereas nearer inspection revealed a purple sheen. Nevertheless, as you’ll be able to see clearly from my {photograph}, the again feathers had been finely vemiculated, in contrast to the fairly coarser vermiculation on the American hen. Lesser Scaup has solely a slight black tip to the beak, whereas this hen had a transparent black band. My hunch was Tufted Duck x Pochard.
Not many area guides are useful in the case of hybrids, however the Collins Fowl Information will get full marks because of a double-page unfold of Pochard hybrids, fantastically illustrated by Killian Mullarney. Lars Svensson’s accompanying textual content explains “a fairly puzzling reality is that, amongst wildfowl, hybrids seem to happen extra generally amongst geese and members of the ‘pochards’, genus Aythya, than amongst dabbling geese. The rationale for this isn’t clear.” He goes on to counsel that when learning a hybrid duck, “all the time play shut consideration to: sample, measurement and form of invoice; iris color; form of head seen in profile; and presence or not of effective vermiculation on gray or grey-brown elements.”
Seven completely different hybrids are proven within the Information, together with Tufted Duck drake x Pochard duck. The outline is uncannily correct for the duck in my {photograph}. I hadn’t thought of the attainable parentage greater than the 2 possible species concerned, however intriguingly a Pochard drake x Tufted duck seems fairly completely different. Svensson notes that Tufted drake x Pochard duck is “now a well known hybrid”. Additional analysis revealed the Fowl Hybrids weblog (http://birdhybrids.blogspot.com) has a number of revealing images of this (and lots of different) hybrids.
I photographed the hen proven right here on the Wildfowl & Wetlands Belief reserve at Welney on the Ouse Washes (Cambridgeshire, UK) in November. Intriguingly, I had additionally photographed an analogous hybrid hen right here in February this 12 months (see image beneath). Was it the identical particular person? My guess is that it in all probability was. The place it had spent the summer season is anybody’s guess, however the majority of the Pochard that winter within the UK come from Jap Europe and Russia, with birds ringed in Latvia being notably quite a few.
Hybridisation could also be uncommon amongst wild wildfowl, however is widespread in captivity the place birds have significantly much less alternative of potential companions. I’ve seen some weird-looking hybrids in duck collections. A few years in the past a buddy of mine saved a small however various assortment of geese and geese. One 12 months he was very excited when his feminine Hawaiian Goose hatched 4 wholesome goslings, the primary time he had managed to breed this species. Nevertheless, as they feathered up it was clear that one thing was unsuitable. Sadly, they weren’t pure Hawaiians, however hybrids with a Barnacle Goose. Each geese are fairly carefully associated as they’re members of the genus Branta, which additionally contains the Redbreasted Goose, Brent Goose, Cackling Goose and Canada Goose.
Not that geese need to be members of the identical genus to hybridise. I usually see wild hybrids of Canada Goose x Greylag Goose (a Branta with an Anser). Why the 2 species ought to mate is a thriller, however the ensuing offspring is straightforward to determine as my {photograph} exhibits. I believe that they could be fertile, too, however that’s one thing I’m uncertain about. They’re not handsome birds, so they could wrestle to draw a accomplice. Charles Darwin was most involved when he found that hybrids between Greylag and Swan Geese had been utterly fertile, as his early definition of a species was that one species didn’t interbreed with one other.
My most memorable encounter with a non-wildfowl hybrid was some years in the past in Finland, once I was taken to a Blackgrouse lek the place two cock Racklehahns had been current. The Racklehahn is a well known hybrid between a male Blackgrouse and feminine Capercaillie. These two Racklehahns had been fairly completely different. One was a good-looking hen that confirmed options of each dad and mom, whereas the opposite was a distinctly ugly-looking blighter. Alas, I wasn’t in a position to spend ample time watching them to see if that they had any success with the assembled Blackgrouse hens. This was earlier than the times of digital images, too, so I didn’t take any images. Nevertheless, if you wish to know what a Racklehahn seems like, check out The Fowl Hybrids Weblog which has some nice images.
Falconers found a number of a long time in the past that hybrid falcons have further vigour, so with the assistance of synthetic insemination some unlikely hybrids have been produced. Peregrine crosses are hottest, typically with Gyr or Saker Falcons, whereas I’ve even seen birds that had been an unlikely cross between a Peregrine and a Merlin. When these hybrid falcons escape into the wild, as they generally do, they invariably create an actual identification problem. A Saker x Peregrine can look very very similar to a dark-phase Gyr, whereas Saker x Gyr typically resemble the latter. Fortuitously, falcons don’t (as far we all know) hybridise within the wild, whereas so far as I’m conscious no person has studied the affect of escaped hybrids on wild populations.
