Gadwall

Amber list

Mareca strepera

A quietly elegant grey duck whose subtlety hides a feisty habit of stealing food from coots.

Dabbling duck · 25,000 breeding pairs (UK)

Measurements

In most ducks the male (drake) and female (hen) look quite different. Study both to identify any bird.

Photos: Mdf · CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Aquatic plants and seeds, often pirated from diving coots surfacing with food.

Dabbling (tips up, tail in the air) Medium (mallard-sized, 45–55 cm)

Shallow lakes, reservoirs, marshes and coastal lagoons.

A patchy but increasing UK breeder in lowland wetlands.

Continental birds swell the winter population considerably.

Males give a low, croaking "nheck"; females quack softly.

Compare with close relatives.

Anas platyrhynchos

The UK’s most familiar duck — the ancestor of nearly all domestic ducks and the benchmark every other species is measured against.

Anas crecca

Our smallest duck — a dainty, fast-flying dabbler that gathers in busy, twittering flocks on marshes.

Mareca penelope

A neat, round-headed duck of estuaries whose whistling flocks are a sound of the British winter.

Spatula clypeata

A dabbling duck with an outsized spatula bill, built for filtering tiny food from the water.