As a common rule, birders don’t like hybrids. For a begin, they might wrestle to establish them, whereas secondly they will’t even tick them. On BirdTrack, the British equal of e-Hen, the listing of birds offered does enable for Tufted Duck x Ferruginous Duck to be recorded, however not Tufted Duck x Pochard. Nonetheless, 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 similar to its companions, as was its dimension and form, it didn’t instantly stand out. Nonetheless, there had been experiences of a Scaup combined in with the flock, which at first look I assumed this chicken is perhaps. 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 way in which, is a uncommon however common vagrant to the British Isles, first recorded right here in 1987, however seen yearly lately.
My chicken definitely had the peaked crown attribute of a Lesser Scaup; the feathers on its head seemed black at a distance, whereas nearer inspection revealed a purple sheen. Nonetheless, as you may see clearly from my {photograph}, the again feathers had been finely vemiculated, in contrast to the moderately coarser vermiculation on the American chicken. Lesser Scaup has solely a slight black tip to the beak, whereas this chicken had a transparent black band. My hunch was Tufted Duck x Pochard.
Not many area guides are useful with regards to hybrids, however the Collins Hen 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 moderately 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 finding out a hybrid duck, “all the time play shut consideration to: sample, dimension and form of invoice; iris color; form of head seen in profile; and presence or not of superb vermiculation on gray or grey-brown components.”
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 potential 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 widely known hybrid”. Additional analysis revealed the Hen Hybrids weblog (http://birdhybrids.blogspot.com) has a number of revealing pictures of this (and lots of different) hybrids.
I photographed the chicken proven right here on the Wildfowl & Wetlands Belief reserve at Welney on the Ouse Washes (Cambridgeshire, UK) in November. Intriguingly, I had additionally photographed the same hybrid chicken right here in February this 12 months (see image under). Was it the identical particular person? My guess is that it most likely 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 Japanese 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 selection of potential companions. I’ve seen some weird-looking hybrids in duck collections. A few years in the past a pal of mine stored a small however different 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. Nonetheless, as they feathered up it was clear that one thing was improper. 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 consists of the Redbreasted Goose, Brent Goose, Cackling Goose and Canada Goose.
Not that geese should be members of the identical genus to hybridise. I frequently 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 easy to establish as my {photograph} reveals. I think that they might be fertile, too, however that’s one thing I’m uncertain about. They’re not handsome birds, so they might 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, after I was taken to a Blackgrouse lek the place two cock Racklehahns had been current. The Racklehahn is a widely known hybrid between a male Blackgrouse and feminine Capercaillie. These two Racklehahns had been fairly completely different. One was a good-looking chicken that confirmed options of each mother and father, whereas the opposite was a distinctly ugly-looking blighter. Alas, I wasn’t in a position to spend adequate time watching them to see if that they had any success with the assembled Blackgrouse hens. This was earlier than the times of digital pictures, too, so I didn’t take any pictures. Nonetheless, if you wish to know what a Racklehahn seems like, check out The Hen Hybrids Weblog which has some nice pictures.
Falconers found a number of a long time in the past that hybrid falcons have additional vigour, so with the assistance of synthetic insemination some unlikely hybrids have been produced. Peregrine crosses are hottest, usually 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 often 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 usually resemble the latter. Thankfully, falcons don’t (as far we all know) hybridise within the wild, whereas so far as I’m conscious no one has studied the affect of escaped hybrids on wild populations.