Rob Robinson

A Eurasian freshwater diving duck, breeding across Eurasia, East to Kamchatka. Present year-long in the W and C European range, while Nordic, Russian and Asian populations are truly migratory. The wintering range is very similar to that of the Common Pochard, including most of Europe, N Africa, the Nile Valley, and from Iran to Japan.

Season of assessment

B

Population trendDecreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		879000-1240000,1060000
Red List categoryNT
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Tufted Duck

The general direction of movements is NE-SW, except for movements from Iceland and the British Isles, which are NW-SE. Whatever the origin of the birds, the major wintering sites providing recoveries are located in England, the Netherlands, large Alpine lakes and large French wetlands, down to the Mediterranean coast. Most recovery distances are under 1,000 kilometres: the species is a short-distance migrant that moves to traditional wintering sites. The main movements seen are from Scandinavia and N Russia to the Wadden Sea and Swiss alpine lakes. 

Recoveries by Condition for Tufted Duck

Despite being a game bird, over the whole time period a little over half of the recoveries (~55%) were reported alive. However, this varies over time with mostly dead recoveries (75%) before 1961, decreasing to 19% after 1990. This is largely linked to the development of ringing and colour-marking in Aythya ducks.

Annual Movements for Tufted Duck

While Tufted Ducks are still present in Russia and N Europe until early Nov, most recoveries of these birds in C and (especially) W Europe are from Nov onwards. There are some within-winter movements, sometimes over long distances, but they are far less frequent. There are numerous movements within the winter between sites, and the probability of moving more than 200 km within the winter has been estimated from ringing data at 90% (Korner-Nievergelt et al. 2009). Movements back to the NE start mainly in Mar, but are more pronounced in Apr.

Connectivity by Month by Region for Tufted Duck

Most breeding birds return to their breeding grounds in Scandinavia and Russia in May. The are  on their wintering grounds (the British Isles to Central Europe) Oct-Mar and are completely absent from the N breeding sites from Nov-Feb. Most ringing is on the wintering grounds and recoveries show that most of these birds move to Fennoscandia and Russia in summer, sometimes far to the E (even to Yakutia at >130°E), so the connectivity pattern is mainly driven by these numerous NE populations. Icelandic birds are present on their breeding grounds May-Aug, moving to the British Isles in winter.

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
Korner-Nievergelt FR, Hofer J, Sauter A, Jenni L2009 . Measuring within-winter movement rates of Tufted Duck Aythya fuligula and Common Pochard A. ferina based on ring re-encounter data. Wildfowl : 24–41https://wildfowl.wwt.org.uk/index.php/wildfowl/article/view/1341

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