Not EvaluatedWhite-Headed Duck
Oxyura leucocephala
19 countries16 parks
Species group · Birds
WAnimals has 2 species of stiff-tailed duck, in the family Anatidae.
Ranges calculated from the profiles that record the figure, not from all 2.
Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.
No species documented in this group is genuinely at risk according to the IUCN, with the data available today.
Recorded in 38 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:
It came to the brink of extinction in Spain, down to 22 birds in 1977; today it is a recovery story.
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Its recovery is one of the great successes of Spanish conservation: from a few dozen birds in the 1970s to a viable population, thanks to the protection of the Andalusian lagoons and a captive breeding programme begun at Doñana in 1984 that was already releasing 41 ducklings by 1989.
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It rarely flies: taking off needs a long run across the water, and faced with danger it would rather dive.
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Its courtship is more elaborate and more striking than that of the white-headed duck, and the females of that species seem particularly drawn to it: that is the root of the hybridisation problem.
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It reached Europe from a British collection: escapes and releases in the early 1950s, first wild breeding in 1960, and exponential spread ever since.
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It appears on the GEIB list of the twenty most damaging invasive species present in Spain.
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