Despite its name, the common scoter duck is no longer that common in the UK. Conservationists from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, in fact, believe that there are only 40 breeding pairs left so they started to tag the birds in an effort to save them.
Scoters are known to be proficient divers and feed on mollusks and crustaceans. The common scoter is among the British birds that scientists know little about and this has something to do with their nests being well hidden and are thinly spread across remote areas making it difficult to find them.
The species are in UK's Red List of threatened species albeit there are still over a million common scoters estimated to thrive around the world.
In an attempt to know where these rare seafaring ducks spend the winter, researchers tagged scoters with trackers to track their migration. When the birds returned to the loch this summer, the researchers recovered the trackers and were astonished with what they discovered.
The birds were tagged with the thought that since they are closely related, they would be together at sea during the winter. The researchers though found out that instead of migrating en mass, the ducks flew off in different directions.
One scoter headed south to Morocco, another went on for a flight to the Scottish coast while others flew off to the Irish Sea. Scientists initially tagged five scoters but one of them was eaten by a fox.
Ed Burrell, research officer at WWT, said that the result provided researchers with some clues on how to help solve problems with the birds. He noted that that how the birds spend winter apart actually offers them protection that could ensure their survival during winter.
Burrell said that the birds staying apart during winter is comparable to the Royal family not flying together. Thus, they cannot be affected by single threats such as an oil spill or storm. I t also means that what has been causing the population of the birds to decline is likely to be in the summer when the ducks are together in the Highlands.
"It feels like this mysterious species wants to keep flummoxing any human interest in them," Burrell said.
It isn't yet known what has been causing the decline of the birds in the U.K. albeit the theories include competition for food with small trout, wind farms, oils spills and ferries.
Photo: Jason Thompson | Flickr
