Ferruginous Duck

• Its decline in the Spanish wetlands began in the middle of the last century with the conversion of lagoons and floodplains, especially the Guadalquivir marshes, though it was probably never very common here.
• Its scientific name combines the Greek aithuia, a seabird mentioned by Aristotle and Hesychius, with the Russian nyrok, meaning pochard.
• Its conservation in Spain now depends more on what happens in other countries than on what is done here.
• In Spain it is listed as in danger of extinction and its population is counted in dozens of pairs: it is one of the most threatened waterbirds in the country.
• It is extremely unobtrusive: it keeps to the marsh vegetation rather than open water, and detecting it in surveys requires dedicated searching.
• Wetland restoration projects in Valencia and Andalusia have brought it back to breed on lagoons from which it had been absent for decades.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat & environment

Shallow fresh water with abundant submerged and floating vegetation and dense belts of emergent vegetation at the margins. In some areas it uses brackish pools. On passage and in winter it also frequents coastal waters, inland seas and large open lagoons

Sexual maturity

12 months

Gestation / incubation

26 days of incubation

Litter / clutch size

9 eggs

Sources consulted: IUCN Red List; SEO/BirdLife (ficha); Threatened Waterfowl Specialist Group; Güldenstädt 1770; BWP (Birds of the Western Palearctic)

Best time: Very hard to see in Spain given how rare it now is