The Mandarin Duck 9781472597564, 9781408149638

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List of Tables CHAPTER 1 Table 1. Records of Mandarin Duck included in the China Bird Report: a Checklist of Birds of China 2003–2009.

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Table 2. Number and density of Mandarin Ducks along the rivers of the southern Sikhote-Alin’ in 2000–2005.

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Table 3. Weather conditions in April at the Lazo weather station in the southern Sikhote-Alin’ during years of survey.

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Table 4. Correlation matrix of Mandarin Duck density for some rivers of Primorskiy Kray in 2000–2005.

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Table 5. Native range population estimates for the Mandarin Duck.

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CHAPTER 5 Table 6. November counts of the Mandarin Duck at main sites in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.

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Table 7. Summary of confirmed breeding records of Mandarin Ducks in Cheshire and Wirral 1976–2008.

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Table 8. Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) sites in England holding Mandarin Ducks between 2004 and 2009.

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Table 9.

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Total number of Mandarin Ducks recorded by WeBS Core Counts in Britain 2007–2008.

Table 10. Records of Mandarin Duck in Argyll 2006–2010.

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Table 11. Known breeding populations of the Mandarin Duck in Scotland 1988–2003.

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Table 12. Status of Mandarin Ducks in Scotland in 2011.

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Table 13. Population and brood counts of Mandarin Ducks on the River Shimna in Northern Ireland 1990–1995.

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Table 14.

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Long-distance dispersal flights of ringed Mandarin Ducks.

CHAPTER 6 Table 15. Estimated number of Mandarin Duck pairs breeding annually in the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement Area outside Britain and Ireland between 1996 and 2007.

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CHAPTER 8 Table 16. Countries in the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement Area in which Mandarin Ducks have occurred in the wild but are not known to have bred.

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CHAPTER 9 Table 17. Reproductive parameters of Mandarin Ducks during the 2004–09 breeding seasons in the Zuojia Nature Reserve in north-eastern China.

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List of Maps CHAPTER 1 1. Present distribution of Mandarin Ducks in their native range in the Far East.

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CHAPTER 5 2. Present range of the Mandarin Duck in Britain and Ireland.

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CHAPTER 6 3. Present range of the Mandarin Duck in Continental Europe.

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CHAPTER 7 4. Present range of Mandarin Ducks in the United States.

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Preface I first became interested in the Mandarin Duck when, as a young birdwatcher in the 1950s, I came across a duck at Virginia Water in Windsor Great Park, on the Berkshire/Surrey border, the plumage of the male of which was so extraordinary that, in the words of the German traveller Engelbert Käempfer (also Kämpfer or Kempfer: 1651–1716) ‘I could hardly believe my own Eyes’. (Three hundred years later, Käempfer’s appreciation was echoed by Grey (1926: 117) who said that – ‘the Mandarin drake and the Carolina [Wood Duck Aix sponsa] drake – are two of the most brilliant-plumaged waterfowl in existence, in fact, two of the most brilliant of all birds in existence’). Subsequent enquiries revealed that this was the Mandarin Duck, and further investigations and Savage’s seminal 1952 monograph on the species disclosed the remarkable story of how the Mandarin came to be living in the wild in Britain. This set me wondering how many other animals living wild in the British countryside were not native but exotic species introduced from abroad by man. Research revealed a total of 62 such naturalised alien vertebrates. (It is, perhaps, significant to note that, even after the eradication or natural disappearance of such species as the Coypu Myocastor coypus, Mongolian Gerbil Meriones unguiculatus and Himalayan and Crested Porcupines Hystrix brachyura and H. cristatus, and the passing of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which prohibits the release into the wild of further alien species, some 30 years later the total of exotic vertebrates had risen to around 100). When I began my work on introduced species, I was fortunate in having no competitors. In those days, interest in non-native species was regarded as beneath the notice of serious biologists. In his seminal work on naturalised animals, Fitter (1959: 238) recounts how ‘Terry Gompertz, in her pioneer field study [Bird Study 4: 2-13 (1957)] of the feral pigeons of London, relates her astonishment, as a novice birdwatcher, at the contemptuous attitude of many ornithologists towards her subject’. Today, wiser counsels fortunately prevail and naturalised exotics are recognised, together with loss of habitat, as the main reasons for the decline or extinction of native species of fauna and flora worldwide. Finally, a plea. It is linguistically incorrect to refer to such species as the Mandarin Duck, when living in the wild outside their natural range, as ‘feral’, as so many of the scientific and other publications I have consulted do. The correct terminology is ‘naturalised’, or even just ‘wild’. The term ‘feral’ should properly be used exclusively for domestic or domesticated species that have escaped from captivity and reverted to the wild. Similarly, it is incorrect to refer only to those introduced species that have become pests as ‘invasive’. The OED definition of the term ‘invasive’ is ‘tending to invade or intrude’. Thus, all introduced species, whether they are pests or innocuous, are properly described as invasives. In 1974, the names and boundaries of several counties in England and Wales, and in 1975 those of some in Scotland, were changed. The old names and boundaries have been adhered to here for events predating 1974–75, with the new names and boundaries being used for events after those dates. ‘in the sixteenth century, to claim to know a particular bird species one had to understand everything about it, from the complex web of ancient knowledge, through its folklore, mythology and of course, its emblematic significance’ (Birkhead 2011: 22). Hence the inclusion here of the chapter on The Mandarin Duck in Oriental Legend, Literature and Art is of prime importance in fully appreciating the significance of such an enigmatic species as the Mandarin.

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Introduction Birds have always had a peculiar fascination for man. They have been admired for the beauty of their plumage; marvelled at for the variety and delicacy of their songs and for their ability as mimics of other species (e.g. mynas Sturnidae) and reproducers of human speech (e.g. parrots Psittacidae); and, perhaps most of all, envied for their power of flight. Birds (and other animals) have been introduced outside their natural range by man for a variety of reasons; for sporting purposes; for sentimental or nostalgic reasons by homesick colonists; as a potential source of food; as a form of biological control of a pest species; as scavengers; for conservation reasons; and as an aesthetic amenity. Birds introduced in the last category have been mainly the so-called ‘ornamental’ pheasants Phasianidae and wildfowl Anatidae. The earliest member of the Anatidae to become domesticated (i.e. brought into captivity) by man was the Muscovy Duck Cairina moschata of South America, which was already under human control (domestication) when in the 16th century the New World was invaded by the Conquistadores, who subsequently brought some Muscovies back with them to Spain (Donkin 1989). The mainly white forma domestica of the Muscovy Duck is possibly the most widely distributed of all the world’s wildfowl species (Blair et al. 2000). In Britain, the practice of keeping foreign wildfowl in captivity dates mainly from the mid17th century, when royalty and the aristocracy began to construct on their properties impressive landscaped grounds and lakes (Turner 1999). The earliest documented mention of wildfowl in captivity refers to birds in the collection of Charles II (reigned 1660–85) in St James’s Park in London, where in his Diary for 1665 John Evelyn saw Greater Canada Geese Branta canadensis and Egyptian Geese Alopochen aegyptiacus. Francis Willughby and John Ray in their Ornithologia (1676–78) saw Greater Canada Geese in the royal collection before 1672. Later, the celebrated architect and landscaper, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716–83), the reviver of the natural, rather than more formal, style of landscape gardening, laid out more than 170 gardens in many of the great English private estates of the 18th century. Brown’s forte was the management of water, and the draining and embanking of marginal boggy land and diverting, with dams, sluices, meanders and cascades, water into lakes which were almost invariably the focus of his designs (Brown 2010). Whether Brown was himself responsible for the gardens of Sir Matthew Decker, Bt. at Richmond Green in Surrey, to which was introduced in 1745 the first Mandarin Duck in Britain, is unrecorded, but as the best-known landscapist of his day there is every likelihood that it would have been to Brown that a man such as Decker (a director of the East India Company and a Member of Parliament) would have turned as the designer of his estate. Although there is again no documentary evidence to support the supposition, it seems not unreasonable to speculate that later in the 18th century such a decorative species as the Mandarin would have been introduced to other estates landscaped by Brown or his contemporaries. However that may be, the Mandarin Duck is now the most widely introduced species in the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement Area (AEWA) (Banks et al. 2008). Flood (2009) summarises – from Owen et al. (2006) – the interim AEWA guidelines on the avoidance of introductions of non-native waterbird species: 1. Establish baseline information on importation, captive holdings and established free-living populations of non-native waterbird species. 2. Develop and maintain monitoring programmes to periodically revise the baseline information.

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3. Undertake environmental risk assessment to establish levels of potential threat posed by each non-native waterbird species, so as to prioritise action. 4. Establish or improve legislation to prevent the deliberate introduction of non-native waterbird species and allow their control where established populations exist. 5. Introduce measures to prevent escapes of non-native waterbird species from private collections. 6. Introduce measures to prevent the import of high-risk waterbird species [e.g. Greater Canada Goose], where the risk is established as a result of the risk assessment undertaken in (3) above, backing legislation with enforcement. 7. Design control strategies to limit or remove high-risk non-native waterbird species, test and report on their feasibility. Implement education programmes and raise awareness among key stakeholders, derive public support for control measures where implemented and establish monitoring systems to track success of such control measures. Flood (2009) also outlines what a number of international conventions and legislative instruments have to say about aliens and the introduction of exotic species, the most important of these are: 1. EU Birds Directive (1979) Article 11. ‘Member states shall see that any introduction of species of bird which do not occur naturally in the wild state in the European territory of the Member States does not prejudice the local flora and fauna’. 2. Bern Convention (1979) Article 11 (2) Contracting parties undertake ‘to strictly control the introduction of non-native species’. 3. Convention on Biological Diversity (Río 1992) Article 8 (h) Contracting parties are committed to action ‘to prevent the introduction of, control or eradicate those alien species which threaten ecosystems, habitats or species’. 4. African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (1999) Article III Contracting parties shall ‘prohibit the deliberate introduction of non-native waterbird species into the environment and take all appropriate measures to prevent the unintentional release of such species if this introduction would prejudice the conservation status of wild flora and fauna; when non-native waterbird species have already been introduced – shall take all appropriate measures to prevent those species from being a potential threat to indigenous species’. Although the contemptuous attitude among professional ornithologists encountered by Terry Gompertz in her study of Feral Pigeons (see Preface) is happily a thing of the past, during my research for this book I was frequently struck by the prejudice against all introduced species, with no discrimination being made between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’. One of my Scottish correspondents, while generously providing me with useful information, wrote that ‘thankfully’ Mandarin no longer occurred in his area. Another correspondent, again in Scotland, informed me that his request to a major ornithological NGO for some nest-boxes was initially

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approved, on the assumption that they were for native Goldeneye Bucephala clangula; when my correspondent revealed that the boxes were intended for Mandarin the offer was withdrawn1. Yet a representative for the RSPB (Scotland) admitted to me that in his opinion Mandarin pose no real risk to Goldeneye. In Lever (2009: 13) I quoted a well-known ornithologist as being ‘appalled to see a photograph of Egyptian Geese on a National Trust property where they were welcomed as rare visitors’ (British Birds 2000. 93: 2-3). Yalden & Albarella (2009: 194) refer to alien species as causing ‘a worrying diminution of international biodiversity. They have been largely accepted whenever they seem likely to settle as breeding birds, but should not be. We should have a western Palaearctic bird fauna, and polluting it with alien species diminishes biodiversity world-wide. After all, a large part of the excitement of travelling overseas is to see the characteristic fauna of those areas’. But surely the addition of an alien species such as the Mandarin Duck to a country’s avifauna, provided it can be shown that such a species causes no harm in its adopted home, increases rather than diminishes international biodiversity, and to cater for the whims of travelling birdwatchers seems wholly irrational. In any case, it can be argued that the Mandarin Duck (see chapter 4) is a longstanding (albeit extinct) member of the Palaearctic avifauna. This in-built xenophobia and ‘racist’ prejudice against all alien species is as irrational as it is misguided. Few sensible people who are aware of the ecological and economic damage caused by, for example, European Rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus, Common or Brown Rats Rattus norvegicus or American Mink Neovison vison would shed a tear over their removal. But to tar all exotics with the same brush is both illogical and unfair. ‘The frequently articulated argument that concern about invasive species is underpinned by a belief that all invasive species are innately undesirable holds no water’ (Coates 2011: 707). Indeed, although introduced species often harm natives, there is also the potential for natives and introduced species to enter mutually beneficial relationships.2 Given that many are not species-specific, these might be more widespread than previously appreciated’ (Stachowicz 2011: 467). Although as a generalisation it is of course right to regard all introductions with suspicion and as potentially ‘bad’ (just as the reintroduction of many formerly native species that have disappeared is inherently ‘good’), to issue a blanket condemnation against all introduced species is both irrational and illogical (on a par with the belief of those ill-informed people who claim that predation by Eurasian Sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus and Common Magpies Pica pica is the principal cause for the decline of British songbirds. ‘This is a much researched topic’, write Yalden and Alborella (2009: 200), ‘on which the scientific evidence is very clear’, adding rather splendidly, ‘but apparently uncomprehended, perhaps incomprehensible, to the suburban majority’. Not dissimilar is the ill-informed, and unfortunately successful attempt to ban the reintroduction of the magnificent White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla to East Anglia). When considering the pros and cons of animal introductions, it is well to bear in mind the so-called ‘Tens Rule’, propounded by Williamson and Fitter (1996); this states that as a rule of thumb only one in ten of introduced species ever occurs in the wild, that only one in ten of those becomes successfully established (naturalised), and that only one in ten of those (i.e. 0.1% of species arriving) achieves pest status3. The problem with those introduced species that do establish and attain pest status is that they are likely to become very serious pests indeed. Finally, three points regarding the Mandarin Duck need to be emphasised. Firstly, many colonies that become established and increase to quite substantial numbers may eventually crash and disappear. An example is the population on the River Tay in Perth and Kinross, which although it once numbered almost 100 individuals (pers. obs.) is now apparently no longer extant. The reasons for the fragile and ephemeral nature of some colonies are not fully understood, but in some cases – as in the Tay population – may be connected to the abandonment of supplementary winter feeding. Even when they do not entirely die out, some colonies are

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subject to considerable fluctuations in numbers – probably due at least in part to the effect of genetic bottlenecking. Secondly, because of the species’ shy and secretive nature there are almost certainly more colonies scattered around Britain than are documented in the literature. Finally, for the same reason, the numbers in any given population are almost impossible to assess with any degree of accuracy; Davies (1988) reckoned that he saw only one in four birds in any given population, and on Lake Ashi in Japan Savage (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) doubted if he saw more than one in 10 of those birds present. Also, in many cases in Britain it is frequently hard to determine whether a new sub-population has been formed from recent escapes from captivity, or whether by natural expansion of range through dispersal from a nearby already naturalised colony. If a new sub-population comes into being in the vicinity of a collection of wildfowl, the natural presumption is that escapes from that collection are the origin of the new colony; in the majority of cases this may well be so, but in the absence of conclusive evidence (e.g. the presence on the birds of leg-rings) it is almost impossible to prove. Similarly, if a new colony is formed in the vicinity of an already existing sub-population it is generally presumed that the new colony is the result of dispersals from the existing one. Again, in the majority of cases this may well be so, but it is a proposition that does not always hold good. It is conundrums such as these that make the study of the Mandarin Duck such a fascinating subject.

Notes 1. Perhaps to show its heart was in the right place, the NGO subsequently sent my correspondent detailed instructions on how to make his own Mandarin Duck nest-boxes! 2. A classic example in England is the relationship between the native Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion and the introduced European Rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus. The butterfly lays its eggs on Wild Thyme Thymus polytrichus, which survives best on closely-grazed sward where the butterfly’s host, the red ant Myrmica sabuleti, which rears the butterfly’s larvae underground, also thrives. The arrival of myxomatosis in 1953 eradicated some 99% of the Rabbit population, allowing grass to grow unchecked: this greatly reduced the amount of suitable habitat for both Wild Thyme and M. sabuleti, and also for the Large Blue which had disappeared by 1979. The recovery of the Rabbit population resulted in the restoration of optimum Wild Thyme and M. sabuleti habitat, enabling the Large Blue to be successfully reintroduced since 1983 (Thomas 1995). Thus the re-establishment of the indigenous Large Blue butterfly depended at least to some extent on the survival of the alien European Rabbit. 3. The support provided by birds for the ‘Tens Rule’ is inconsistent. For a full discussion see e.g. Williamson (1996), Cassey et al. (2004) and Jeschke and Strayer (2005).

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Acknowledgements I owe special debts of gratitude to Andy Davies, who generously made available to me the results of his research over many years on Mandarin Ducks in Berkshire and Surrey; to Peter Lack of the BTO, who kindly contacted on my behalf county bird recorders and BTO representatives throughout the country and forwarded their responses to me; to Mike Wilson of the Alexander Library of Ornithology at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology in Oxford, Baz Hughes of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and Nigel Collar of BirdLife International in Cambridge who helpfully provided me with the names of contacts in the Far East; and to Paul Cooper of the Natural History Museum in London, Alison Harding of the Natural History Museum in Tring, Sophie Wilcox of the Alexander Library in Oxford, and Carole Showell of the BTO Library in Thetford, all of whom patiently and with good humour submitted to my pestering for research material, as I trawled through innumerable county avifaunas and county bird reports. To them all I am extremely grateful. I also express my heartfelt thanks to the staff of the libraries of the Zoological Society of London, the Linnean Society of London and the Victoria and Albert Museum. For kindly translating foreign publications for me I am indebted to Andrew Jankowski (Polish), Victoria Nankinova (Bulgarian), Mike Wilson (German and Russian), and the Marlow Language Centre (Russian and Dutch). For generating the distribution map of the Mandarin Duck in Britain and for kindly agreeing to its reproduction here I am grateful to the British Trust for Ornithology. Katrina van Grouw’s delightful paintings and drawings greatly enhance the appearance and text of the book, and I much appreciate her cooperation. Without the generous help and cooperation of a host of correspondents this book would have been very much the poorer. My grateful thanks are due to the following, who unstintingly responded to my requests for information: David Anderson; John Armitage; Glen Baggott; George Ballyholme; Stuart Benn; Richard Bland; Andrew Bluett; Stephen Bradwell; Paul Britten; Neil Calbrade; Cheng Tso-Hsin; Michaela Clarke; Andy Clements; Ray Collier; Paul Collin; Steve Coney; Jon Cook; Martin Cook; Tony Cooper; Peter Cosgrove; Simon Cox; Peter Cranswick; Dick Cuneo; Allan Dawes; Paul Daw; Tim Dean; Paul Doyle; Mark Eddowes; Iain English; Sally Fisher;Yuzo Fujimaki; Geoff Gibbs; Iain Gibson; George Gordon; Harry Green;Ted Green; Clive Hartley; Peter Hendley; Hiroyoshi Higushi; Lynn Hill; David Hockham; Hugh Insley;Yuri Isakov; David Jardine; Nigel Jarrett; Kelvin Jones; Mikhail Kalyakin; Gordon Kirk; Vladimir Labzyuk; Liu Yang; Mike Martin; Anne-Marie McDermott; Clive Mckay; Neil Morrison; Ray Murray; Yoshi Miyabayashi; Yuzo Murofushi; Andy Musgrove; Dimitar Nankinov; Chris Pendlebury; Ivan Proctor; Bill Quantrill; Brian Rabbitts; Eugene Rae; Christian Rutz; Christopher Savage; Harry Scott; Yuri Shibnev; Lawton Shurtleff; Judith Smith; Martin Spray; Beverley Walker; Paul Walton; Haitao Wang; Stephen Welch; Jim Williams; Shane Wolsey; Jan Worden; Simon Wotton; Lucy Wright; Zhao Zheng-jie; Bernie Zonfrillo; Victor Zubakin. For collectively acting as midwives to this book I gratefully acknowledge the help and cooperation of Nigel Redman, Jim Martin, Lisa Carden, Fiona Pike and Nicky Thompson. Finally, I once again express my thanks to Pat Berry for her patience and skill in deciphering and processing my lamentably chaotic manuscript. As in the case of my previous books, the working material for this book has been deposited in the archives of the Natural History Museum in London, and the correspondence and other relative documents in the archives of the Linnean Society of London. Christopher Lever, Winkfield, Berkshire 2012

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Chapter 1

Native range in the Far East In the Far East, Mandarin Ducks formerly bred from around 40ºN on the Chinese mainland principally in the Tung Ling (Eastern Tombs) Forest – previously, under the Manchu (Ching or Qing) emperors (1644–1912), the Imperial Hunting Grounds north of Peking (Beijing) – to about 51ºN on Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands in Russia and around 55ºN on the River Uda in far-eastern Russia. Between these extremes, Mandarin also formerly bred in North Korea; in the Kirin Forest – another important centre – north of Antung in Manchuria, and throughout the watersheds of the Amur and Ussuri rivers (where they were first seen breeding by a European, Leopold von Schrenck, between 1853 and 1857); on the Japanese islands of Honshu (mainly at around 36ºN, and at between 600 and 900m asl around Mt Fuji); on Lake Ashi near Tokyo on Kyushu (principally at Isahaya east of Nagasaki) and on Hokkaido. Today, their breeding range (described in more detail below) is in north-east Russian Ussuriland and in eastern Siberia in Amur, Khabarovsk and Primorskiy Kray regions as far as the Zeya estuary; on Sakhalin, Kunashir and the Kuril islands; in China in Heilongjiang, Changbai, Shan, eastern Kurin and perhaps in Hebei; and in Japan mainly on Hokkaido, the most northern of the main Japanese islands (Lever 1977, 1990; Kear 2005).

China The history of the Mandarin Duck in China (where the species is known as Yuen Yang) can be traced at least as far back as the time of the Chinese philosopher K’ung Fu-tse (‘the Master of Kung’) (551–479 BC), Latinised as Confucius. At that time China was almost certainly the home of the majority of the world’s Mandarin. Since then, due to loss of its wetland and

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habitat, the Chinese range of the Mandarin has been restricted discontinuously to parts of the country’s eastern seaboard. From the northern border with Russian Ussuriland, the duck occurs intermittently from the Zhalong marshes and Khingan mountain ranges south for more than 3,000km through North and South Korea to Yunnan Province in southern China, and inland spasmodically to the borders with Burma and India (Cheng Tso-hsin 1963, 1976, 1978–79, 1987). Almost one billion people (80% of the country’s human population of nearly 1.25 billion) live in the rich farmland and wooded mountains that were formerly the Mandarin’s primary habitat. In the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which were at one time probably the species’ principal wintering and breeding grounds (Hu & Yubo 1986), the human population reaches an extraordinary density of 2,500 per 2.6km2. This density has resulted in a massive depletion of the area’s forest resources for agriculture and industry which, concomitantly with urbanisation, road construction and water pollution, has depleted the habitat of the Mandarin Duck and, of course, other species. Between 1949 and 1981 China logged some 75 million hectares, 92% of which was Mandarin-friendly natural broadleaved deciduous woodland rather than inimical coniferous forest plantations. This rapid deforestation resulted in huge wildlife habitat loss as well as watershed protection and soil conservation. In 1997, severe droughts caused the Huang He (Yellow) River to dry up for 267 days, affecting industrial, agricultural and human water users in China and, of course, wildlife (including Mandarin) dependent on the wetlands formed by the river and its many tributaries. In the following year, devastating flash floods in the Yangtze and other major river basins resulted in the loss of 4,150 human lives, the displacement of millions of people and economic damage estimated at 248 billion yuan (c. US$30 billion), as well as massive damage to wildlife habitat in the wetlands dependent on the river. In 1998, the Chinese government, having concluded that the causes were deforestation and farming on the steeply sloping hills of the river valleys, banned further logging under the Natural Forest Conservation Program. As a result, timber harvests fell from 32 million m3 in 1997 to 12 million m3 in 2003, causing a 20–30% increase in timber prices in the Beijing wood market between 1998 and 2003. The forest ecosystem services lost as a result of deforestation in China between 1950 and 1998 were estimated to be worth up to US$12 billion per year, including climate control, timber and fuel supply, agricultural productivity, water regulation, nutrient cycling, soil conservation, flood and property damage, loss of river transport capacity, reservoir and lake sedimentation, desertification, loss of revenue from logging, loss of water run-off and reduced precipitation. Around 64% of this loss was attributed to the decrease in the supply of timber to the construction and other industries. This curtailment in massive deforestation should eventually, when young trees mature, be of long-term benefit to the beleaguered Mandarin Duck. Most benefits, however, come at a cost; in this instance the logging ban resulted in increased importations of foreign timber to China from other countries, whose native forests are thus being denuded to satisfy China’s needs (CIFOR 2005; TEEB 2010). (See also Chapter 2.) In early autumn, Mandarin in the montane regions of northern China and Russian Ussuriland start their southerly migration, usually flying at night in small groups, often for only short distances. How many individuals make this journey, and which flyways they use, is still uncertain. They may head south from western Ussuriland into China via inland mountain passes or along the valley of the Songhua River in Manchuria, to meet up with others in the Zhalong marshes and nature reserves in north-east China. Here, nearly 800km from the coast and at an altitude of only 120m asl, lies the Sanjiang Plain, at 8,640km2 China’s largest network of freshwater marshes and shallow lakes and ponds which, collectively, provide an abundance

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of food, in the form of aquatic invertebrates, frogs, fish and molluscs for waterfowl. Here, Mandarin migrating south may join up with those that have bred in the neighbouring Greater and Lesser Khingan mountain ranges (Savage in Shurtleff & Savage 1996). From eastern Ussuriland, migrating Mandarin may select a more central route that takes them several hundred kilometres further south to what is perhaps the best-known breeding area for the species in China, the Changbai Shan Nature Reserve, just north of the Chinese/North Korean border (Cheng 1987). This north-eastern region of ancient forests surrounding the Tianchi (Heavenly) Lake includes numerous small marshes and bogs in the Changbai Mountains, and is within a day’s flight for Mandarin from eastern Ussuriland. Changbai is also an important breeding ground for the rare Chinese or Scaly-sided Merganser Mergus squamatus (Kolomiytsev 1990; Shokhrin & Solovieva 2003) with which Mandarin may compete for nesting sites. Mandarin breeding in Zhalong, Changbai and places nearby may fly directly south to southern China, or on a more easterly route across the Sea of Japan towards Hokkaido in Japan, or they may follow the eastern seaboard through North and South Korea to Honshu in southern Japan (Savage in Shurtleff & Savage 1996). Chang (1980), in common with most other Chinese ornithologists, believed that few, if any, Mandarin Ducks overwintered in China. Subsequently, in October 1990 Cheng (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) observed that Mandarin had recently been breeding in Guizhou and Yunnan provinces. Another well-known Chinese ornithologist, Zhao Zheng-Jie told Savage (op. cit.) that Mandarin breed principally in the Changbai and Lesser Khingan mountains, in the same habitat as the Chinese or Scaly-sided Merganser M. squamatus. Zhao Zheng-Jie said that although the Mandarin’s main wintering quarters were principally the central provinces of Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and Fujian (Lai Yong-Jin 1987; Zhong Fusheng 1992), more recently they had also been found to winter and breed in Guizhou Province in the uplands of southern China; here the various oaks Quercus spp. and beeches Fagus spp. provide not only an abundance of potential nesting-sites but also the acorns and beech-mast that are an important component of the birds’ autumn and winter diet (MacKinnon & Phillips 2000). Mandarin Ducks also breed in the three large nature reserves in neighbouring Yunnan Province (Wang Zi-Jiang & Wu Jin-Liang 1983; Weizhi 2008) near China’s border with Burma, Laos and Vietnam, but are not known to overwinter there, though some undoubtedly do remain after breeding as they do in Guizhou (Zhao Zheng-Jie & Zhang Xing-lu 1980; Wu Zhi-Kang & Xie Jia-Hua 1983; Yang Jiong-Li & Zou Xun 1985). The temperate climate of these southern latitudes and the abundant supply of acorns and beech-mast provide, in spite of human disturbance in many localities of each province, an ideal habitat for wintering and breeding Mandarin. In 1990 J. Lu (pers. comm. to Savage) wrote of further recently discovered localities in southern China where wintering Mandarin occurred (Savage in Shurtleff & Savage 1996: 139): In China, Aix galericulata is a forest bird, and a bird of small mountain streams, too. According to my records in the last several years, the largest population of wintering Mandarin Duck is in Mountain (hilly) areas of southeast China. Typical examples are Pingnan – about 1,200 individuals are found every winter; Wuyuan – about 2,000 individuals; Wuyanlin – about 900 individuals. Total numbers of this species in China is not less than 20,000. Whereas Wuyuan and Wuyanlin lie several hundred kilometres inland from the East China Sea, Pingnan is near the coast, just north of the northern tip of the island of Taiwan (where Mandarin occur both as residents and vagrants, mainly in the east) (e.g. Gee et al. 1948; De Schaunsee

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1984; MacKinnon & Phillips 2000), across the Strait of Formosa. These places are the most southern locations of Mandarin Ducks in eastern China. Savage (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) believes that, just as the birds remain in Guizhou to breed in their winter quarters there, so they are likely to do in these southern coastal areas. Thus, as the wooded wetlands of China’s northern Manchurian region are well-established breeding grounds for the Mandarin, so the mild climate of the country’s subtropical mountains some 2,400km to the south are similarly well-established wintering, and probably breeding, grounds (Étchécopar & Hüe 1978). Situated between these northern and southern localities are the long and broad valleys of the mighty Yangtze and Huang He rivers, which once contained some of the most extensive wetlands in China, many of which have been destroyed (Hu & Yubo 1986), and yet more lakes. It was in the bird market in Shanghai, at the mouth of the Yangtze, that the English naturalist Robert Swinhoe (1836–77) saw live Mandarin Ducks for sale in 1873 (Swinhoe 1873; Mearns & Mearns 1988). Barely 150 years ago Mandarin were so abundant on the Yangtze that they could be easily caught by hand. Savage (op. cit.) recounts how fowlers used to float empty calabashes on the river until the ducks became accustomed to their presence; the fowlers then submerged themselves in the water, their heads covered by the hollowed-out calabashes that had been pierced with breathing holes; moving cautiously among the unsuspecting birds feeding near the shore they pulled them underwater by their feet. Many Mandarin caught this way were sold, presumably for food1 and/or as pets, to the crews of British Royal Navy gunboats stationed there after the Second Opium War of 1858–60. A modification of this method of catching Mandarin was for the fowler to attach heavy weights or boots to his feet and to enter the water naked except for a belt to which was attached a series of hooks. He would then submerge and stalk the birds underwater, catching them by their feet and attaching them to the hooks. Nowadays, so denuded are the formerly fertile wetland areas of ancient deciduous, broadleaved trees – to make way for industrial and agricultural development – that the sight of a Mandarin Duck on the Yangtze or in its surrounding areas is virtually unknown. However, within this intensively farmed, industrialised, hunted and densely populated area of almost one billion people, survive two important wetland nature reserves of potential benefit to waterfowl, including Mandarin: Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province and the Dongting Lakes in Hunan Province, a region in the south of the floodplains of the Yangtze River basin some 800–1,130km inland and south of Shanghai. Both have been affected by the alterations in water levels and surface areas that have also impacted on other freshwaters on the floodplains (Hu & Yubo 1986). Poyang, which lies only just above sea level, is China’s largest freshwater body covering almost 400,000ha, with its encircling wetlands and marshes fed by five major river systems. The Poyang Lake Nature Reserve, established in 1982, covers over 20,000ha, and attempts by the Provincial Forestry Department to ameliorate the impact of the 20,000 human inhabitants have met with some success. Since the discovery that the lake supports one of the world’s largest sub-populations of Siberian Cranes Grus leucogeranus, wildlife tourism has greatly increased and hunting is even more strictly controlled. In the dry winter season, the surface area of Poyang falls from some 4,700km2 to no more than 520km2 of lesser lakes rich in small fish, crustaceans and molluscs. Although many wildfowl species spend the winter here, it is used by Mandarin only as a staging-post on migration to more densely forested localities. The Dongting Lakes, some 320km due west of Poyang, consist of an area of large waterbodies and wetlands covering an area of over 400ha. In the early 19th century, Dongting Lake, the largest in the complex, was the most extensive freshwater lake in China, with a surface

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area in excess of 5,000km2. Nowadays, it is believed to cover no more than 3,900km2, and some people predict its disappearance by the mid-21st century unless active protection measures are taken. In 1984, about one-third of the area was designated a nature reserve under local government control. Although shooting is regulated, it is hard to enforce and poaching is rife. In the dry winter season, water levels at Dongting, as at Poyang, may fall by over 15m, forming a multitude of shallow pools, sandbars and mudflats with an abundance of food for migrating or wintering waterfowl. Unfortunately, there is no similar wealth of suitable habit for Mandarin, with very little adequate vegetation for shelter, and although Mandarin have been known to overwinter at Dongting, the majority only use the reserve as a staging-post on their migration south to more suitable areas (He 1979). Mandarin have been reported at more than a dozen other wetland reserves in the same general area as Poyang and Dongting, including Nansi Lake in Shandong Province, Shuangtaizi and Liao marshes in Liaoning Province, and Shijiu Lake on the border between Jiangsu and Anhui provinces (e.g. Zhao Zheng-Jie 1998), but these are reserves in name only since shooting regulations are not enforced. Lacking even the limited hunting controls and conservation measures at Poyang and Dongting, those wetlands in the valleys between the mountains in the north and south, formerly providing optimum habitat for Mandarin, now offer little, if any, sanctuary for migrating Mandarin and other species. The main hope for the future of Mandarin and other wildfowl in China is an apparent improvement in the attitude to the conservation of species and their natural habitats – nearly 20 million hectares of wetlands and almost 2,500 freshwater bodies. The first nature reserve, that at Dinghu Mountain, was designated as long ago as 1956: this, and more recently established reserves, are now part of the worldwide network of reserves, Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Program, that is coordinated by UNESCO. By 1980, there were 70 such reserves, and by 1987 468 encompassing nearly 260,000km2. The future of the Mandarin Duck in China is thus primarily dependent on the success or failure of those managing nature reserves in halting – or at least controlling – the encroachment of human settlement, agriculture and industry, and in limiting the practice of shooting. Only if this is successful can the Mandarin Duck survive in China. In recent years, new breeding sites for Mandarin in China have come to light; in 2003 Li et al. (2009a, b) found a new population in the Jiaotanzhuang-Hehekou region of Pingshan county in Hebei Province, where the gradual increase in numbers suggests suitable nesting and feeding habitats, though the birds’ proximity to humans puts them at risk of disturbance. An unusual breeding location on a building in Guilin in north-east Guangxi Province was recorded by Jiang and Cai (2009). The first (winter) records of Mandarin on the island of Hainan off extreme south China were made between 2003 and 2007 in Dongzhaigang, Qinglangang, Sigeng, Yangpugang and Guyue Villa (Lee Kwok Shing et al. 2007). In the extreme north, Sui et al. (2006) recorded Aix galericulata in 2003–04 in ‘green belt’ areas of inner urban Beijing. J. Lu (pers. comm. to B. Hughes 1994) estimated the presence of around 30,000 resident Mandarin Ducks in China. Although Lu also reported an expanding population, Hughes received reports of declining numbers in northern China (Changbai Shan and the Greater and Lesser Xingan Mountains); Chinese or Scaly-sided Mergansers M. squamatus were certainly declining in this region, so a corresponding decline in Mandarin Ducks is highly likely. Tomek (2002: 209) described Mandarin in China as both breeding and migratory. BirdLife International (2012) lists Baihe-Wanbao and also Wuyuan Datangwu Reservoir as Important Bird Areas in China where ‘this species has triggered IBA criteria’.

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Table 1. Records of Mandarin Duck included in the China Bird Report: a Checklist of Birds of China 2003–2009. Year Date

Locality

2003 18 January

Beijing Niukouyu Reservoir, Fengshan

Site



9 March

Beijing Summer Palace, Haidian

1



28 September

Beijing Yuyuantan Park, Xicheng

16



16 March

Jiangsu Huanhu Road, Xuanwu Lake, Nanjing

30



12 November

Jiangsu Huanhu Road, Xuanwu Lake, Nanjing

18–20 April Jiangxi Wuyuan

8 November Shanghai Dongtan, Chongming Island

Number 2 males

20 11 males; 4 females 1

2004 26 April Heilongjiang Dailing

8 (earliest)



6 October Heilongjiang Dailing

16 (latest)



18 July Hebei Yudaokou, Mulan Hunting Ground

Frequent Beijing Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace, Zizhuyuan Spring, summer and autumn

Beijing Near Huairou Reservoir

October Beijing Huaisha He, Huairou 11 May Beijing Peking University

1 Max. 6 on 19 March Max. 26 on 24 October 60 (mostly immatures) in two groups 3 males; 2 females



27 March

Beijing

Beihe Canyon, Miyun

10



1 October

Beijing

Miyun Reservoir

28



30 October

Beijing

Juma River, Fangshan



26 May Henan Dongzhai Nature Reserve, Luoshan



3 January

Jiangsu Huanhu Road, Nanjing

20



6 February

Jiangsu Shanghu, Changshu

33



15 November Shanghai Dongtan, Chongming Dao (Island)

2



6 March

Zhejiang

Quyuen Botanic Garden, Hangzhou

6



7 March

Zheijiang

Xi Hu (West Lake), Hangzhou



7 March

Zheijiang

Jiufengshan, Ningbo

8 February Jiangxi Wuyuan

1 2

7 30 718 (highest recorded count)



4–6 July

Jiangxi Wuyuan

18



13 November

Guizhou Dujuan Hu (Mengkeng), Changshun

44



13 December

Guangxi



15 January Yunnan Caohai, Kunming

2



15 January Yunnan Cuihu Park, Kunming

1



25 January Yunnan Wugushao-Niubahuang, Gejiu

1



July Yunnan Cuihu Park, Kunming

1

Jinzhongshan Nature Reserve, Longlin

9

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Year Date

Locality

Site

2005 7 May Heilongjiang Liangshui, Beishan, Dailing, Yichun

5 October

Jilin

Xianghai Nature Reserve, Tongyu

29 March Liaoning Shuangjianghe Nature Reserve, Kuandian

Number 2 at each 3 4

Frequent Beijing Miyun, Mentougou, Changping, Yanqing, Huairou, Haidan None seen 7 August Beijing Baihe Valley

1 May Hebei

Xinkai He Reservoir, Beidaihe



22 February

Jiangxi

Mandarin Duck Lake, Wuyuan



20 March

Jiangxi Wuyuan



18 December

Zhejiang



2 April

Guizhou Songjiang Nongchang, Guiyang



17 January Yunnan Cuihu Park, Kunming

2006 8 October

Xi Hu (West Lake), Hangzhou

Liaoning Yalu Jiang Nature Reserve, Dandong

15 (max. count) 5 633 500 70 8 2 11

February–December Beijing Changping, Daxing, Huairou, Miyun, None seen Yanqing and city area 6 April Beijing Huaisha He, Huairou

33 (max. count)

16 June Beijing Yuanmingyuan

5 (1 pair and 3 juveniles)



30 September– Hebei Beidaihe, Qinhuangdao 1 October



17 December

Zhejiang



31 January

Jiangxi Wuyuan

Xi Hu (West Lake), Hangzhou

2007 19 October

Beijing Huaisha He, Huairou



Zhejiang

22 January

Maojiabu, Hangzhou

17 April, 28 December Jiangxi Wuyuan 24 May Jiangxi Wuyishan Nature Reserve, Yanshan

1 and 2 respectively 45 85 179 37 30 and 37 respectively 1 pair (potential breeders)

14 November Yunnan Near Xinjiang

1 female (a rare record for the province)

2008 February–December

None seen

Beijing Unrecorded

3 April Beijing Huaisha He, Huairou Jilin

Ji’an

104 (max. count)



23 March



18 June Henan Dongzhai Nature Reserve, Luoshan



6 February

Zhejiang



26 October

Zhejiang Hangzhou Wan, Cixi

34



12 December

Zhejiang

12

Xi Hu, Hangzhou Qingshanu Reservoir, Lin’an

15 2 45

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Year Date

Locality

2009 Throughout the year

Beijing Various



11 October

Beijing Huanghuacheng, Huairou



28 February

Jiangsu Yuantouzhu, Wuxi



13 November Shanghai Dongtan, Nanhui



19 December

Zhejiang

Site

Bingjiang District, Hangzhou

Number 208 (max.) 24 43 100

Source: China Bird Report: a Checklist of the Birds of China 2003–2009 (per LiuYang). See also: https://sites.google.com/site/cbrchinabirdlist; http://ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/12269492.html

Japan In autumn, after the breeding season is over, Mandarin that nested and reared their young in Russian Ussuriland, on Sakhalin Island and on Kunashir in the Kuril archipelago, fly south to Japan (where they are known as Oshidori), in particular to Hokkaido, the second largest and most northern of Japan’s main islands and a principal staging post for them, and many other species of waterfowl, on their migration south. By October, when the waters on Hokkaido start to freeze, those Mandarin that nested there (many in the sub-prefecture of Rumoi in the extreme north-west, in the sub-prefectures of Oshima and Hiyama in the extreme south and in the sub-prefecture of Nemuro in the east) have been joined by those birds that nested elsewhere in the species’ northern range, and are ready to move south to the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and the Ryukyus. From Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in the south, Japan stretches for some 1,900km and averages barely 320km wide. The principal topographical features are ranges of precipitous mountains – many of volcanic origin – that rise to heights of more than 3,000m. Constituting almost 80% of the country’s landmass and extending the entire length of the islands, they leave very little flat or arable land along the coast. In the few available lowland areas, humans live at a higher density than anywhere else on earth; nearly every hectare of suitable land has been put to agricultural or industrial use, and the majority of major rivers have dried up. Nevertheless, wildfowl of many species, including Mandarin, winter on the more than 6,000 surviving wetlands of vernal streams, lakes, ponds, rice paddies and even reservoirs, whose stable water levels support lush plant growth that provides Mandarin with excellent shelter. Today, more Mandarin are believed to winter in Japan than in all the other countries of their natural range together, including Russian Ussuriland, China, North and South Korea, the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan. Mandarin migrating south to Japan from their most northerly breeding grounds on islands such as Sakhalin off the Asian mainland follow two long-established flyways; birds from the southern Kuril Islands (east of Sakhalin) join up with other species of wildfowl migrating from the Kamchatka Peninsula of Siberia north of the Kuril archipelago, and possibly even from the Aleutian Islands (USA) and western Alaska. Mandarin in the southern Kurils face less than an hour’s flight to northern Hokkaido. Those Mandarin that breed on southern Sakhalin may join up with others that nested in Ussuriland. From Sakhalin they, too, fly to Hokkaido, barely more than an hour’s flight across the 50km or so of La Pérouse Strait. Mandarin from the Asian mainland also fly south to Japan on two other ancient flyways. Birds from central and southern Ussuriland, from northern and central China, and North and South Korea make the long (up to 900km) flight across the Sea of Japan. Savage (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) reports that groups estimated to number several thousand individuals have been

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observed resting on the open sea, seemingly en route for Japan. Since Mandarin seldom exceed a speed of 50km an hour, and fly almost entirely at night, they would be unlikely to reach Japan in a single flight during the hours of darkness. Birds from South Korea making the shorter 200km journey across the Korea Strait have been found resting on Kyushu and southern Honshu, and on Tsushima Island which lies midway between the South Korea mainland and Kyushu. Over 30 species of wildfowl, some having flown hundreds of kilometres from their spring breeding grounds, winter together in Japan. On the shores of lakes, ponds, rivers and streams and even on hydroelectric reservoirs, in montane and in littoral regions, in parks and even in the gardens of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Honshu (Austin & Kuroda 1953), Mandarin find an abundance of cover under broadleaved deciduous trees. Several million wildfowl are believed to spend the winter on numerous Japanese wetlands. Such huge concentrations of birds need an immense quantity of food. Rice, the country’s principal agricultural crop, is harvested in October, immediately before the arrival of the first migrating wildfowl; the new season’s planting does not take place until the following April, well after most waterbirds have departed for their northern breeding grounds. Thus the birds overwintering in Japan can glean kernels left over from the harvest. Savage (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996: 148) quotes from an unpublished document of 1949 entitled Japanese Waterfowl: a Report to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers: The most careful harvester, however, is unable to take every kernel of his rice from his paddy. Some always drops in the mud, where no tool known to man can retrieve it but where it is ideally located for the probing flat bills of dipping ducks. Enough such waste rice is left in the paddies each autumn to maintain many times the present duck population, which, in turn, is the best means of salvaging this wastage and turning it into easily available proteins. Japan’s main contribution to the scientific knowledge of wildfowl, including of course the Mandarin Duck, in eastern Asia has been an annual census, started in 1972, of all wintering waterbirds. Organised by the Environmental Agency of Japan – formerly in conjunction with the Wild Bird Society of Japan – this count takes place in the middle of January on more than 6,000 wetlands. In view of the Mandarin Duck’s secretive nature and its reluctance to venture into open waters far from the shoreline, no visual count is ever likely to give more than a general indication of the true number, and will usually, perhaps always, be a (sometimes gross) underestimate (A. K. Davies in litt.). Nonetheless, these censuses provide the only information on the status of the Mandarin in the Far East and, allowing for the many birds unseen and uncounted, Savage (op. cit.) estimated the total winter population in Japan at between 50,000 and 65,000 individuals, although even these figures are at best no more than an educated ‘guesstimate’. It seems unlikely that all these birds leave Japan in spring to breed in China and eastern parts of Russia. An apparently unpublished report by Fujimaki and Murofushi (1984) entitled Distribution and Abundance of the Mandarin Duck in Japan, quoted by Savage, confirmed the certain existence of nesting Mandarin in seven montane streams and reservoirs on Hokkaido, and reported unconfirmed breeding in a further 16 localities. In another six areas, Mandarin were observed during the breeding season but no nests or ducklings were seen. Further south, in the Hakone Prefecture south of Tokyo on the main island of Honshu, nesting Mandarin occur on Lake Ashi, a large water body of volcanic origin extending to around 7,300ha at an altitude of over 610m, and along the neighbouring Sakawa River (Austin & Kuroda 1953). Ashi is surrounded by dense forests of native deciduous trees. Savage, who during his sojourn in Japan

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participated in several winter counts on Lake Ashi, agreed with his fellow-counters that they had only seen perhaps one in ten of the total number of birds present. Savage quotes Fujimaki and Murofushi (1984) as concluding, in spite of their research, that ‘there is little information on the abundance of the Mandarin Duck [in Japan] in the breeding season’. Many parts of Japan, but especially its heavily forested montane regions, seem to provide near-optimum conditions for Mandarin, and indeed it is here that the species is probably most common. These deciduous woodlands provide an abundance of nuts that are the Mandarin’s staple autumn and winter diet. Four climatic zones have evolved across Japan’s length (1,900km north to south): subarctic coniferous, cool/temperate deciduous broadleaved woodland, warm/ temperate evergreen and subtropical. In all but the first of these, Mandarin have been known to occur, and thus in theory much of Japan offers suitable Mandarin habitats. However, a special feature of Japanese forests is the under storey, comprising various species of tropical dwarf bamboo Bambusaceae; these occur in all four climatic zones but in particular in the cool/temperate forests of central and northern Honshu, and they inhibit natural forest regeneration. This dense ground cover of tough shoulder-high bamboo, known as Sassa, makes human access nearly impossible and looking for wildlife extremely hard. The numerous valleys and streams in these forests that are so difficult for humans to penetrate may well provide an ideal habitat for breeding Mandarin. During the Second World War most accessible forests were indiscriminately felled to provide timber for Japan’s war effort, and have since been replanted with commercial softwoods and other easily harvested trees that lack suitable nest-holes for Mandarin and do not provide them with the nuts that are so essential for their survival in winter. The government claims that 62% of native forests in Japan are pristine; the actual figure is probably little more than 25%. Nevertheless, deep in the mountains and impenetrable forests where people cannot venture, Mandarin Ducks may breed successfully, unobserved by humans, in numbers far higher than have so far been reported. The Racoon Dog Nyctereutes procyonoides (known locally as the Tanuki) and the Red Fox Vulpes vulpes, which prey on females and ducklings on the ground, the Japanese Marten Martes melampus (which is said not to occur on Hokkaido), the Stoat Mustela erminea, the Weasel M. nivalis, the Siberian Weasel or Kolinsky/Kolonok M. sibirica and feral domestic Cats Felis catus are the principal predators of nesting adult Mandarin and their eggs and chicks. Avian predators include the Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos japonica, the Northern Goshawk Accipiter gentilis fujiyama, the Ural Owl Strix uralensis (which is probably too small to take adults but preys on the young), the Black Kite Milvus migrans lineatus (referred to by Savage (1952: 25) as the Blackeared Kite and which as a useful scavenger is a protected species) and especially the Mountain (or Hodgson’s) Hawk-Eagle Spizaetus (Nisaetus) nipalensis orientalis. Although arboreal snakes (Colubridae) may prey heavily on female Mandarin and their eggs and young in the nest, and large fish undoubtedly take a toll of ducklings in the water, such predation probably does not have a serious impact on the Japanese Mandarin population. More influential on Mandarin Duck numbers are periodical eruptions of such pathogens as avian influenza, a virulent outbreak of which occurred in the winter of 2010–11 and killed large numbers of domestic fowl and wild birds, including Mandarin (Hiroyoshi Higushi pers. comm.). (See also below under Russia.) Recent research by Fujimaki (2001) recorded the year-round presence of Mandarin Ducks on four reservoirs – Kuttari, Iwamatu, Tokachi and Tomura – in the upper reaches of the Tokachi River on Hokkaido (see also Fujimaki 1993), and Anezaki (1999) reported Mandarin on Takara-jima Island in the Tokara chain off the southern tip of Kyushu. Mahaulpatha et al. (2001) recorded the presence of wintering Mandarin at lakes formed by damming in the Chugoku-sammyaku mountain range in the Hiroshima Prefecture in southern Honshu, while Yamamoto (1996) found that the return of Mandarin to the lake in the Ono Wildlife Sanctuary

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in south-west Hiroshima normally coincided with sunset, and that earlier arrivals were usually associated with bad weather conditions when it became dark earlier. This finding confirms research with other species of wildfowl. Summing up the present distribution of Mandarin Ducks in Japan, they are recorded from Hokkaido, Honshu, Sado, Oki, Shikoku, Kyushu, Tsushima, Miyake-jima, Hachijo-jima, Haha-jima, Tanegashima, Amami Ôshima, Iheya-jima, Okinawa, Miyako-jima, Ishigaki-jima and Minami-daito-jima. The Committee for the Check-List of Japanese Birds (2000) listed the Mandarin as a locally common migratory breeder in Hokkaido, the southern Kuril Islands, northern Honshu and Sado, and as a locally common winter visitor or resident breeder in central and south-west Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, the Amami Islands (Amami Ôshima and Yoron), the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa, Iheya-jima, Miyako-jima, Iriomote-jima and Yonaguni-jima), and as an irregular visitor to Oki, Tsushima, Iki and Goto islands, Yakushima, Tanegashima, Izu islands (Hachijo-jima), the Ogasawara Islands, and Daito Islands (Minami Daito-jima). (See also Wild Bird Society 1982; Fujimaki 2006; Li et al. 2009b). A number of essential elements for estimating the population dynamics of a bird as shy and secretive as the Mandarin, which is virtually impossible to census accurately by visual counts, are lacking in the Far East. In particular, the legal shooting of ducks in North America provides invaluable data not available for the protected Mandarin in eastern Asia. This is not to suggest, as Savage is careful to point out, that Mandarin should be subject to shooting, but simply indicates the benefits that can accrue from it. Much of the data on Wood Duck Aix sponsa population dynamics in North America are the result of information provided by hunters. Furthermore, in the case of the Wood Duck the widespread provision of nest-boxes throughout its range in North America provides useful information on population trends, and the ringing of nesting females and the web-tagging of ducklings can help to ascertain migration patterns. If such a policy were to be adopted throughout the Mandarin’s range in the Far East, it would be likely to yield invaluable information on, for example, the availability of natural nesting-sites, migration patterns and population trends. Fujimaki (2008) surveyed Mandarin Ducks along 2km transects in 809 quadrants (5 x 5km) in Hokkaido between early May and late July from 1976–2007. The total number of quadrants censused was 1,258. Mandarin were found to occur in 44 quadrants (17.8% occurrence frequency) in lowland plain areas, in 103 quadrants (22.5%) in those areas that include both plains and mountains in a quadrant, and in 98 quadrants (18.0%) in purely montane areas. The highest elevation at which Mandarin were observed was 820m asl. In May, Mandarin were found in the lower and middle reaches of rivers and in lakes and reservoirs in mountain areas, and in the middle and upper stretches of rivers and in montane lakes and reservoirs in June and July. During the breeding season Mandarin, as elsewhere, favoured waters surrounded by native forest. Summing up, Y. Fujimaki (2000, 2006 and pers. comm.) says that a nationwide census conducted annually in January reveals a wintering population in Japan of between 10,000 and 20,000 Mandarin, though this is likely to be a considerable underestimate because in some prefectures census sites are few in number, and in others the numbers of birds counted are lower than those obtained by the Wildbird Society of Japan. (Callaghan and Green (1993) gave a total of 50,000, with a peak winter count of only 16,000.) Deforestation in Japan is not a major factor determining the Mandarin’s population, which has, however, been affected by loss of habitat and winter food through the widespread planting of conifer plantations. A ringing programme exists, but is very small. In the Japanese Red List (2006) the Mandarin Duck is listed as ‘Data deficient’. Tomek (2002: 209) lists the species only as resident in Japan. BirdLife International (2012) lists Futatsuno and Kanogawa reservoirs as Important Bird Areas in Japan where ‘this species has triggered IBA criteria’.

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Breeding Range

Resident/Winter Range

Resident & Breeding Range

Map 1. Present main distibution of Mandarin Ducks in their native range in the Far East (China, Taiwan, North and South Korea, Japan and Russia Ussuriland). Distribution compiled by the author. Map reproduced from Shurtleff & Savage (1996), by permission of Christopher Savage.

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Russia The natural range of Mandarin in Russia extends over all the Primorskiy Kray (Maritime Territory) and the rivers of the Amur basin in a westerly direction up to the eastern Transbaikalia. The birds nest along the river valleys, preferring slowly flowing water and forest pools and lakes. In montane regions they occur up to 850m asl. Until the mid-20th century the species was generally scarce but widely distributed throughout the southern part of Far Eastern Russia (Shulgin 1936; Vorobiev 1954; Belopolsky 1955; Spangeberg 1964). A decline in the population in the 1960s/70s was followed by an increase in the 1980s (Polivanov 1985; Kolomiytsev 1985, 1988; Labzyuk 1985; Shibnev 1985). Shibaev (2001)2 described the then breeding grounds of the Mandarin Duck in Russia as being in the Amur and Sakhalin Regions (Amurskaya oblast’ and Sakhalinskaye oblast’), in the Khabarovsk Territory (Khabarovskiy Kray) and Primorye or Ussuriland (Primorskiy Kray), mainly in the Amur foothills. In the extreme south-east the birds bred in the Amur Region, in the foothills of the Turana and Malyy (the Little or Lesser) Khingan mountain ranges, and also along the course of the Amur River between the confluence of the Zeya and Bureya rivers – the latter being the most western point of the species’ breeding range (Dymin 1981). In the Khabarovsk Territory, Mandarin were established on the left bank of the Amur (including the basins of tributaries between the Samara and Gorin), on the right bank (including the basins of tributaries of the Gur), and the basin of the River Khor (Roslyakov 1985). Until at least the mid-19th century Mandarin also bred on the Lower Amur as far as Mariinskoye (Schrenk 1860). The most northerly breeding area recorded by Shibaev (2001) was the eastern slopes of the Sikhote-Alin’ – until at least the late 1920s on the River Botchi (Emel’yanov 1929). In the south, the Mandarin’s breeding range comprised all wooded localities throughout the whole of Primorskiy Kray (Shul’pin 1936; Spangenberg 1965; Elsukov 1985a; Kolomiytsev 1985a; Labzyuk 1985; Shibnev 1985). Mandarin also nested in the southern and central districts of Sakhalin Island, from the Kril’on peninsula in the south to the basin of the Tym’ River in the north (Nechaev 1991). It is believed that breeding also occurred on the island of Kunashir in the South Kurils north-east of the Japanese island of Hokkaido (Nechaev 1969). Mandarin also nested in northern Japan and China. Shibaev (2001) found that, as elsewhere throughout their native and naturalised ranges, Mandarin Ducks favour mixed and deciduous bottomland forests on the middle and lower stretches of rivers, with a small number penetrating upriver to the faster-flowing upper reaches. Mandarin also favour wild and remote stillwaters and their tributaries with plenty of waterside growth and accumulations of wind-blown trees for cover and shelter; they breed in localities opened up by men near roads, and on the edges of fields near human settlements (Kolomiytsev 1985a; Labzyuk 1985; Shibnev 1985). Nests are sited in holes or cavities in trees at a height of between 6 and 15m above ground level. Clutches are normally of between 7 and 14 eggs, with an average of 9.2–9.8 (Labzyuk 1985; Shibnev 1985; Kolomiytsev 1988). Shibaev (2001) found that in one nest the incubation period lasted for 32 days and in two others for at least 31 days. Ducklings of three broods spent from 13–28 hours in the nest after hatching; they normally all leave the nest-hole in a period of between two and three minutes. In June the average brood size is 8.9, and in July and August 5.8. Shibaev (2001) found that seasons with high breeding success rates (e.g. 1980, 1982, 1984) alternated with unfavourable ones (e.g. 1981, 1983). Breeding success is determined by the temperatures of the first 10 days of June, and ducklings are highly susceptible to hypothermia (Kolomiytsev 1988). Limiting factors on Mandarin on their breeding grounds include predation by Racoon Dog Nyctereutes procyonoides, American Mink Neovison vison (Kolomiytsev 1988), Eurasian

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Otter Lutra lutra, Siberian Weasel Mustela sibirica and Eurasian Eagle Owl Bubo bubo ussuriensis (Labzyuk 1985). Many Mandarin are killed during the autumn sport-shooting season; in areas of taiga (a dense and sometimes swampy coniferous forest) in Primorskiy Kray (Ussuriland) and the Khabarovsk Territory, Mandarin are more numerous at the start of the shooting season than all other ducks, and many shooters claim not to be able to differentiate between them in their winter (non-breeding) plumage and other duck species; deliberate poaching by illegal shooting also occurs (Roslyakov 1985; Labzyuk 1985; Shibnev 1985; Kolomiytsev 1988). Widespread logging in the Mandarin’s breeding range has also been an important limiting factor (see Conservation in the Far East, Chapter 2). That part of Russia in eastern Siberia known as Ussuriland – the most northern part of the Mandarin Duck’s native range – stretches approximately 950km from north to south and for some 300km east to west. The principal geographic feature in this rugged land is the Sikhote-Alin’ coastal mountain range that extends from north to south for the whole length of Ussuriland, and rises to a maximum altitude of 2,078m at Tardoki Yani. The western side of these mountains slopes gradually towards the valleys of the massive Amur and Ussuri rivers which divide Ussuriland from North Korea and Manchuria in the south and Siberia in the north, while the eastern side falls steeply towards the Sea of Japan. In winter, after the Mandarin have migrated south, temperatures can reach -35ºC and the country becomes snowbound. Shokhrin and Solovieva (2007) examined the status of the Mandarin Duck in the southern Sikhote-Alin’. Data for Mandarin in this area were obtained in accordance with the authors’ research on the Scaly-sided or Chinese Merganser Mergus squamatus. Birds were counted in conformity with the linear representation methodology for wildfowl adapted to the special conditions of the Sikhote-Alin’ (Komoliytsev 1990; Shokhrin 2003; Shokhrin & Solovieva 2003); research was conducted from 10–20 April and 10–20 May (nesting pairs), and from 10–20 June to mid-August (hatchlings count). Dates for the spring counts were dictated by those for Table 2. Number and density of Mandarin Ducks along the rivers of the southern Sikhote-Alin’ in 2000–2005. River

Length of survey route (km)



Number of pairs/density of pairs per km 2000 2001 2003 2004 2005

Kievka

85

29/0.34 23/0.27 5/0.06 14/0.16 12/0.14

Lazovka

15

9/0.5 6/0.3 3/0.2 5/0.33 4/0.27 6/0.6 6./0.5 2/0.2 1/0.1 2/0.2

Krivaya

10

Margaritovka

20

– 1/0.05 4/0.2 2/0.1 4/0.2

Chernaya

40

– 3/0.08 7/0.18

Partizanskaya

30

– – 5/0.17 – –

Avvakumovka

60

–

Arzamasovka

40

–

– 10/0.25 –

Vasilkovka

50

–

–

Zerkalnaya

50

–

– 18/0.36 –

Pavlovka

60

– – 18/0.3 – –

Bolshaya–Ussurka Ussuri

10 45/30

–

–

9/0.15 10/0.17 10/0.17 12/0.2 –

2/0.04 2/0.04 – –

– 8/0.8 4/0.4 –

–

– 17/0.38 9/0.3

–

–

Source: Shohkrin & Solovieva 2007.

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migration, which on rivers of the southern Sikhote-Alin’ is normally complete by 10–12 April. The principal rivers and their feeders that were surveyed and the respective length indices are shown in Table 2. Since the Kievka River and its tributaries were selected as the model area for research, most of the data were obtained from this region. On the other rivers, counts were made more irregularly, and on some (Arzamasovka, Zerkalnaya, Partizanskaya) data were only obtained in 2003. Shokhrin and Solovieva’s research covered the rivers of the eastern and western slopes of the southern Sikhote-Alin’. The river system in this region is fairly dense and the rivers have many tributaries. Some rivers, especially those on the eastern slopes, are similar to mountain rivers – they are fast-flowing and only become slower in the lower reaches. The average speed of the streams is 0.8–1.9km per hour. During the summer monsoon periods a considerable increase in water level is typical for these areas, and minimum water levels occur in their absence. In general the rivers on both of the Sikhote-Alin’ slopes are similar, but those on the eastern slope are shorter and flow into the Sea of Japan. The largest rivers are the Kievka (with the Krivaya and Lazovka feeders), Avvakumovka (with the Arzamasovka and Vasilkovka feeders), and the Zerkalnaya and Partizanskaya. The rivers on the western slope that flow into the Ussuri River are somewhat slower and longer, and have a wider diversity and number of fish. Valley forests on the riverbanks contain several types of elm Ulmus sp., poplar Populus sp., ash Fraxinus sp., lime Tilia sp. and the rarer Chosenia Chosenia macrolepis, the hollows of which make ideal nesting sites for Mandarin Ducks. Mongolian Oak Quercus mongolica forests prevail on the volcanic hill slopes. The years 2000 and 2005, with their long and cold springs, were very distinctive in terms of weather conditions. The spring seasons in the years in between were early and warm. The maximum Mandarin Duck density in 2003 was observed on the Arzamasovka, Ussuri, Pavlovka, Zerkalnaya and Bolshaya Ussurka rivers, as well as on the two feeders of the Kievka River – the Lazovka and Krivaya. The minimum densities were registered on the Kievka and Vasilovka rivers. The cross-section of the annual dynamics of the density of the Mandarin Duck population turned out not to be homogeneous over the rivers. The biggest fluctuations in density over the years were observed in the Kievka River basin, both in the main river and its principal feeders. In addition, the fluctuations were synchronous, and the growth of the Table 3. Weather conditions in April at the Lazo weather station in the southern Sikhote-Alin’ during years of survey. Year

Precipitation (mm)

Average monthly temperature (ºC)

1981 20.8

6.4

1982 52.2

5.8

1983 101.4

7.4

1984 60.5

3.6

1985 36.8

5.9

1986 26.5

4.7

2000 59.3

4.2

2001 29.2

6.7

2003 33.2

7.4

2004

5.7

6 [sic]

2005 60.0

5.7

Source: Shohkrin & Solovieva 2007.

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Table 4. Correlation matrix of Mandarin Duck density for some rivers of Primorskiy Kray in 2000–2005. River Kievka

Kievka Avvakumovka Krivaya Lazovka Margaritovka – -0.52 0.74 0.98 -0.88

Avvakumovka -0.52

–

Krivaya

0.74 -0.61

Lazovka

0.98 -0.55

Margaritovka -0.88

0.78

-0.61 -0.55 –

0.78

0.61 -0.58

0.61 –

-0.94

-0.58 -0.94

–

Source: Shohkrin & Solovieva 2007. Mandarin Duck population in the Kievka River was accompanied by an increase of population in the Krivaya and Lazovka rivers. The density correlation indices for these three rivers for 2000–05 were high and positive. Changes in density for the Margaritovka River relating to the same years were of a different nature than those for the rivers of the Kievka basin, and the correlation quotient between the rivers of the Kievka basin and the Margaritovka River turned out to be high and negative. The density of the Mandarin Duck population in the Avvakumovka River remained practically the same throughout 2000–05, and did not have any significant relationship to the density indices for the Kievka River basin, but even these minor fluctuations turned out to be synchronised with the density fluctuations on the Margaritovka River. The latter could be explained by the proximity of these two basins. In general, even for short periods of observation, the dynamics of the Mandarin Duck density changes on the Primorskiy Kray rivers is characterised by a general trend of declining density. The indices for 2000 and 2001 are higher than those for 2003 for all of the rivers, and the density in 2004 turns out to be lower than the density in 2003 for the majority of the rivers. In 2005, the density of Mandarin Ducks was close to the indices for 2003. During the spring count conducted in 2000 and in 2005 in the Kievka River valley, apart from the territorial nesting couples, flocks of Mandarin Ducks comprising 3–35 individuals in 2000, and 4–20 in 2005 were observed. Both years stand out because they had excessive rainfall, and, consequently, the water level in the rivers was high. The presence of the flocks during the nesting period can be explained by the prolonged migration run resulting in a later starting date for mating. In general, the density of nesting birds does not depend upon the water level in the rivers at the time of the count, nor does it relate to the average temperature in April. Having compared the data obtained by Shokhrin and Solovieva with that of Kolomiytsev (1988) for 1981–86 in the Kolomievka River valley and his information in the Margaritovka River as of 1982, and also the data from Labzyuk (1985) for 1982 on the Avvakumovka River basin, it is apparent that in the early years of the 21st century the number of Mandarin Ducks has declined compared to those of the 1980s. In 1981–86, 19 to 54 pairs had been nesting in the main area of the Kievka River and the average density for this period equalled 0.347 pairs per km. During their survey Shokhrin and Solovieva (2007) counted from 5 to 29 pairs, and the average density was 0.194 pairs per km; thus the current density is almost two or three times lower than the respective indices for the 1980s. One to four pairs of Mandarin are currently resident in the Margaritovka River valley, and this is a three to ten times decrease compared to the respective indices for 1982. The number of Mandarin Duck nesting pairs on the Chernaya River has also decreased by two to three times, and a twofold decline has been observed on the Vasilkovka River. At the same time, the density on the Arsamasovka River has increased by 2.5 times. It looks like the density on the

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Avvakumovka River has changed little since 1982, and even a slight increase has been observed. The number of Mandarin Ducks in the valleys of the major feeders of the Kievka and the Avvakumovka rivers as well as some minor rivers on the eastern slope of the Sikhote-Alin’ remains fairly stable (with rare exceptions), and for some rivers it has even increased slightly. Rivers of the western and northern slopes of the Sikhote-Alin’ stand out as the number of Mandarin Ducks in them is still fairly high. In general, the trend for the number of Mandarin Ducks for all the rivers of the southern Sikhote-Alin’ looks negative compared to the respective indices relating to the end of the last century, and the impression is that, against the background of the increase in the number of the Scaly-sided Merganser Mergus squamatus, the number of Mandarin Ducks (at least in the Kievka River basin) is decreasing. This trend did not relate to the minor rivers and feeders where the Scaly-sided Merganser does not nest or nests only in small numbers. The Mandarin Duck is a typical resident of such rivers, and the population is limited only by the number of rivers available. It is possible that there is a regular cycle of decline in the number of Mandarin caused by some natural but unknown factors. During the spring migration in 2000–01 flocks comprising 12–46 individuals were observed on the sea shore and in the mouths of rivers. Such flocks have not occurred during the following years. A general decline in the number of flocks and the number of birds comprising them has also been noted during the autumn migration. Thus, whereas in 2000 flocks comprising 11–27 individuals were observed, within the last four years migrating flocks include a maximum of 9–12 birds, and more often they comprise only 3–5 birds. A similarly sharp decline in the number of migrating flocks had been registered by Polivanov (1981) in 1969–74 in the Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve area. Excessive shooting is among the possible reasons for the decline in the number of Mandarin, as the times for opening the spring and autumn hunting seasons for wildfowl do not coincide with the migration periods. As a rule the spring hunting season opens after the mass migration of the ducks, and the autumn hunting season starts before the migration. As a result, the birds nesting locally are being shot, among them Mandarin Ducks as well as the Scalysided Merganser. It is interesting that, compared to other species of ducks, Mandarin are highly vulnerable to the pathogenic form of the avian flu virus, and according to data obtained from the St Petersburg Zoo, their flu-related death rate is high (A. K. Sirotkin, pers. comm. to Shokhrin & Solovieva). Although the mass deaths of birds belonging to this species have not been reported from their winter habitat areas in Soth East Asia, it can be presumed that the Mandarin Duck’s heightened vulnerability to avian flu is likely to be a factor in the decline in numbers resulting from the recent (2001–05) epizootic. (See also above under Japan.) Mandarin Ducks (known in Russia as Mandarinka) arrive from the south in barren and seemingly inhospitable Ussuriland in early spring to breed. In the whole of Russia, only Ussuriland provides the habitat that Mandarin need for breeding and has fewer competitors for the tree-cavities that are essential for nesting, while at the same time providing an abundance of food for both adults and ducklings. No reliable estimate has ever been made of the percentage of Mandarin that fly north from China, Japan and North and South Korea to rear their young in Ussuriland, but it may be relevant that in North America around one-third of Wood Duck Aix sponsa are believed to remain to breed near their winter quarters while the remaining two-thirds migrate north to nest (Bellrose & Holm 1994; Shurtleff & Savage 1996). Does the Mandarin Duck in the Far East follow the same pattern? At the time of writing (2012) this intriguing question remains unanswered. In much of China and Japan, many of the large deciduous broadleaved trees that Mandarin need for nesting have been, and are being, felled to make way for human development.

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Ussuriland, with its relatively pristine habitats, may be a breeding area of last resort. The higher elevations of the Sikhote-Alin’ range are covered with taiga – a dense and sometimes swampy coniferous forest – that is inimical to Mandarin, since evergreen softwoods provide neither suitable nesting-cavities nor appropriate food. Below the taiga, however, on the western side of the Sikhote-Alin’, Mandarin thrive in the slowly flowing streams in the deciduous woodland of the valleys of the Amur and Ussuri river basins. On the gentle slopes of these valleys, the huge Mongolian Oak Quercus mongolica, which provides the Mandarin with both ideal nesting sites and an abundance of autumn and winter food, is the dominant species. These slopes also contain a profusion of willow Salix spp., birch Betula spp. and Amur Lilacs Syringa reticulata amurensis that provide shelter and cover for Mandarin in the shallower reaches of the numerous streams. Mandarin, however, unlike Wood Duck, appear to be equally at home in rather more lotic waters, and can frequently be seen standing in safes on rocks and sandbars in fairly swiftly running forest streams (Knystautas 1987), which provide an abundance of food in the form of insects, aquatic invertebrates and small amphibians. The earliest Mandarin, many already paired (although drakes consistently outnumber ducks), arrive in southern Ussuriland from their wintering grounds in the south in early March, though the majority do not appear in the north until the end of the month or in early April. First-comers usually arrive in small groups of up to half a dozen and sometimes even singly or in pairs. Later in the spring, the birds will fly further north past Khabarovsk and north of the confluence of the mighty Amur and Ussuri rivers. In the 450km2 Bolschekhekhtsirskij State Reserve in the Khabarowsk Region of Russia, which includes the Bolschoj Khekhetsir mountain range and part of the neighbouring plain, Mandarin breed mainly along the lower and middle stretches of the principal tributaries of the Chirka River, where nests are usually made in holes in Mongolian Oak or lime Tilia spp. trees and in mixed riverine woodland, but also in the forks of branches or on the ground (Voronov 1981). In 1993 the population of Mandarin in the reserve was estimated to number between 10 and 20 breeding pairs. Mandarin normally arrive in Bolschekhekhtsirskij between 5 and 15 April – the earliest arrival (in 1985) being 20 March. The nesting period is quite long, with newly hatched broods having been seen between 7 June and 5 July. Broods usually number between five and eight ducklings, though up to 12 or 13 have been recorded. The autumnal southern migration, when Mandarin sometimes assemble in flocks of up to 60 birds – although groups of two to six or even single individuals are more common – ends in late October. The Bolschekhekhtsirskij Reserve borders on to a densely populated industrial area in which Mandarin seem perfectly at home; they occur regularly along the Amur River in the vicinity of villages, and rest on ponds adjacent to highways. In 1990 they first bred on Big Ussuri Island, which is frequently visited by humans. If left undisturbed, the Mandarin Duck should in time become a regular breeding species in and around Khabarovsk City. Further north still, near the Amur estuary at Nikolayevsk-na-Amure opposite the northern tip of Sakhalin Island, parties of a dozen or more Mandarin may arrive on the warmer stretches of the main river or its tributaries until the end of April, when even greater numbers pour into rivers and lakes throughout Ussuriland, including sometimes the littoral east of the Sikhote-Alin’ mountains. It was in the marshes, lakes and wooded streams of the lower Amur and on Sakhalin Island that the Prussian naturalist Leopold von Schrenck (1826–94) gave what is probably the first account of Mandarin in their native breeding areas (von Schrenck 1860; Mearns & Mearns 1988; see also von Middendorf 1843, 1844; Radde 1862-1863). It is, perhaps, significant to note that at 53º 10'N. Nikolayevsk-na-Amure is several degrees south of the species’ most northerly breeding record at 58º 30'N. in Europe in Caithness in northern Scotland.

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Shortly after their arrival in Ussuriland, Mandarin females begin to search for suitable nesting-sites. In Ussuriland, as elsewhere, these are frequently in trees near slowly flowing streams or in marshy areas of small tributaries where they flow into larger rivers, or close to rough and primitive roads or beside rivulets surrounded by agricultural land. Rarely, when there is a dearth of more suitable sites, Mandarin nest in holes in riverbanks or under the fallen branches of old trees. Nest-site selection is believed to depend more on the suitability of the nest-cavity itself rather than the qualities of the surrounding habitat. As in North America, females frequently return to breed in the same nest year after year (Shurtleff & Savage 1996), and their female offspring often choose to nest in the vicinity (Savage, in Shurtleff & Savage 1996). Like Wood Duck, Mandarin construct no actual nest, selecting a site and laying their eggs only if the chosen cavity already has a supply of dead leaves or woodchips with which to cover the first eggs, which are usually laid within a few days of the site being selected. Thereafter, further eggs are normally laid on a daily basis, being subsequently covered with whatever detritus the nest-site contains. At the conclusion of laying, the clutch – usually between 9 and 12 eggs – is covered with downy feathers which the female plucks from her breast, thus allowing her to leave the nest for an hour or more to feed and rest. Incubation does not normally begin until after the last egg has been laid. Although the male remains nearby and joins the female when she leaves the nest to feed, usually in the early morning or evening and occasionally after dusk, he takes no part in incubation, which lasts for around 28–30 days. The chicks normally leave the nest almost immediately after hatching, tumbling from their nest-cavity to the ground on which they bounce unhurt. In Ussuriland nest-cavities are usually between 6m and 18m from the ground. Eggs are arranged in a single layer, with the highest number of eggs (up to a maximum of 14) being apparently laid in the larger cavities, while in smaller cavities the full clutch sometimes numbers no more than seven. For some as yet unexplained reason, the number of eggs and ducklings in Ussuriland is generally considerably lower than it is in Europe and North America. Females and their ducklings often travel overland for more than 1.5km from their nestingtree to reach water, where they shelter and hide under overhanging branches and riverine vegetation. Both females and ducklings are extremely shy and nervous, the latter, at the first hint of danger, diving underwater and swimming submerged to the shelter of the river or lake bank. While newly hatched ducklings hide in waterside vegetation if danger threatens, older ones and their mother flee by skittering away along the surface of the water before emerging to hide on the bank; partially fledged ducklings, when danger threatens, leave the bank and skim away on the surface of the water while the females attempt to distract potential predators by feigning injury. Ducklings are usually fully fledged by August in time for the autumn migration south. It is at this time in Ussuriland that female Mandarin start their annual moult thus becoming, like most members of the Anatidae, unable to fly for several weeks. Male Mandarin and non-breeding females begin their moult several weeks earlier, the males becoming, as do Wood Ducks (Bellrose & Holm 1994), almost indistinguishable in their eclipse plumage from their mates. During these annual moults both males and females seek shelter from predators in dense woodland. Mammalian predators of Mandarin Ducks in Ussuriland include Racoon Dogs Nyctereutes procyonoides and European Mink Mustela lutreola (each of which is both amphibious and arboreal), Eurasian Otters Lutra lutra and Polecats M. putorius. Savage (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) reports that the remains of four Mandarin were found near the nest of a Eurasian Eagle Owl Bubo bubo ussuriensis, and that Grass Snakes Natrix natrix will enter Mandarin nests to consume the eggs. On Sakhalin Island off the coast of Ussuriland, Mandarin ducklings (and even adults) are at risk of predation by the Critically Endangered Sakhalin Taimen Parahucho

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perryi. (At up to two metres in length and over 50 kg in weight, this apex predator is the largest (and most ancient) salmon species). The most serious threat to Mandarin in Ussuriland, however, are loggers, shooters and, especially, poachers. Although shooting Mandarin is illegal, many are shot by people who claim to be unable to distinguish them in flight from other species. The threat posed to Mandarin in Ussuriland by loggers is loss of habitat through over-harvesting of the region’s rich forest resource, with the concomitant dual loss of both nesting-sites and food. The Ussuriland lowlands, including the lower slopes of the Sikhote-Alin’ mountains, are being reclaimed for agriculture, commercial softwood forestry and mining, which has a highly negative impact on the formerly pristine environment. A total of 150 zapovedniks (nature reserves) throughout Russia, encompassing nearly 160,000km2, afford a degree of protection for Mandarin and other threatened species of fauna and flora. In Ussuriland, a dozen or so such zapovedniks offer some refuge for Mandarin Ducks and the even more threatened and also cavity-nesting Chinese or Scaly-sided Merganser Mergus squamatus. Unlike Wood Ducks, which derive their protein requirements principally from subaquatic and terrestrial insects (Bellrose & Holm 1994), Mandarin in Ussuriland seemingly acquire their protein more from amphibians and fish, including tadpoles (larvae) and roe (eggs). Other elements in the Mandarin summer diet in Ussuriland include dragonflies Odonata, grasshoppers Orthoptera, molluscs Mollusca and even small snakes Ophidia. Young ducklings eat primarily small amphibians, insects and other invertebrates, only later switching to seeds and other vegetable matter. Savage (op. cit.) tells of two Mandarin drakes becoming entangled in a fishing line while pursuing a live fish being used as bait. In autumn, the acorns of Mongolian Oaks become the Mandarin’s staple diet; these are either taken from the ground or from under water, and even plucked while still attached to the tree. Mandarin also eat the seeds and fruit (including nuts) of a variety of other species. In early September, Mandarin Ducks in Ussuriland start their southerly migration, although late-hatched (July) ducklings and late-moulting females may not be ready for the journey south until mid-October. Before their departure, adults and juveniles flock together and then, usually leaving at dusk, fly into the night. Little is known about the flights of Mandarin migrating south from Ussuriland, but Savage surmises that, if they follow the pattern of the Wood Duck, they may fly from only a few to several kilometres before landing to rest (see also Bellrose & Holm 1994). The remainder of the journey south is made in a succession of stages, the birds seeking sheltered waters on which to pause en route. Although the exact itineraries and ultimate destinations of migrating Mandarin remain uncertain, Savage (op. cit.) speculates that some may fly via the valleys west of the Sikhote-Alin’ mountains and then over or through the inland mountain passes into Manchuria and beyond. Others may head south nearer the coast where the Ch’ang-pai Mountains slope east towards North Korea, where they may join up with non-migrating Mandarin that nested in the northern Chinese reserves of the Zhalong Marshes and Ch’ang-pai Mountains and in North and South Korea. Other Mandarins may fly south-east from the Sikhote-Alin’ range across the Sea of Japan to find landfall on Hokkaido and Honshu and some of Japan’s southern islands. Fieldwork on the distribution, habitat preferences and status of several bird species in the Birkin River basin in Ussuriland in spring and summer in 1992–93 and 1995–97 revealed, in conjunction with data collected between 1960 and 1990, that the area was of high conservation priority, especially for Mandarin Ducks, Blakiston’s Fish Owls Ketupa blakistoni, Chinese or Scaly-sided Mergansers Mergus squamatus and Hooded Cranes Grus monacha (Mikhailov et al. 1998), who suggested that the formation of a nature reserve in the lower Birkin region was a

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prerequisite for the conservation of the virgin Manchurian-type wetland and forest habitats and the survival of species of special conservation concern (see also Shibnev in Litvinenko 1985). Away from Ussuriland there have been few records of Mandarin Ducks in Russia. In May 1989, a male was observed among a paddling of other surface-feeding ducks on a backwater of the River Onon near the village of Aksha in South Transbaikalia in eastern Siberia. Later in the same month, a second drake was shot on a backwater of the Kirkun – a tributary of the Onon – near the mouth of the River Enda in the Kyrinskiy District, where a pair was also reported. The origin of these birds, several hundred kilometres north-west of northern Ussuriland, is apparently unknown. Estimates of the total population of Mandarin Ducks in Russian Ussuriland vary greatly (Fujimaki 2000). In around 1960 there were an estimated 8,000 pairs in the Primorskiy Kray region of eastern Russia (Isakov 1983; Nankinov 2006). In 1980 the Asian population numbered about 6,100–6,600 pairs. According to del Hoyo et al. (1992), in 1990 13,361 birds wintered in Japan and 2,332 individuals in China. Five years later between 1,000 and 1,500 pairs were estimated to breed in China and some 3,000–4,000 birds wintered there (Zhao 1998; Fujimaki 2000; Nankinov 2006; Li et al. 2009b). Y. Shibnev (pers. comm. to Savage) estimated that between 1970 and 1981 the population of Mandarin Ducks in Russia had halved. However, V. I. Labzyuk (pers. comm. to Savage) considered that at least on the Avvakumovka River in south-eastern Ussuriland the numbers had remained stable during the 1980s and early 1990s. Yuri Isakov told Savage that although between 1964 and 1974 the population of Mandarin in southern Ussuriland appeared to have fallen by 50%, the numbers in the whole of Ussuriland were no fewer than 8,000 pairs. Litvinenko (1985, 1988) and Knystautus and Shibnev (1990) considered that Mandarin in Ussuriland were in constant decline. In 1993 the autumn post-breeding population of Mandarin Ducks was estimated to number perhaps 15,000 birds. However, count data from the ‘hunting administration’ suggested a population of between 20,500 and 26,800. Until the situation becomes clearer, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust suggests assuming a population of around 5,000–10,000 individuals. Following a big decline in the 1950s/60s, the population is now believed to be stable or even increasing, since hunting-bag figures in the Khankha lowlands, on the Russian/Chinese border, have shown an increase in the number of Mandarin shot between 1976 and 1990. Highest breeding densities occur in the valleys of the Ussuri and Arsenyevka rivers of the western Sikhote-Alin’ mountains. Very few Mandarin remain in winter in Russia after breeding, the majority flying south to China or Japan. In 2010 the total population of Mandarin Ducks in the Far East was estimated to number around 15,000–25,000. Tomek (2002: 209) described the Mandarin Duck in Russia as a common breeding species, a common migrant and an uncommon summer visitor.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea); Republic of Korea (South Korea) Relatively little is known about the status and distribution of the Mandarin Duck on the Korean peninsula, especially in the closed state in the north. Austin (1948: 65) said that: The Mandarin Duck is a not uncommon transient in Korea. Y. Kuroda & Miyakoda (1919, 149) say it passes Seoul in April, late October and November. Won (1934, 106)

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on the other hand, claims it migrates earlier than the other ducks in the autumn. His statement that it nests in Pyongan Namdo has not been credited by subsequent authors, for there is no breeding evidence. This species is a bird of the woodlands, fond of fresh water and tree cover, similar in habits and habitat to the congeneric American Wood Duck. It is seldom found in the open waters of the inlets or large rice paddies with the other migrating waterfowl, but prefers woodland lakes and streams. Campbell (1892, 245) says of the specimen he took in the Diamond Mountains in September 1889, that his “attention was drawn to it by its curious behaviour for a duck … it was on the top of a haystack”. I saw it only at the King’s Forest south of Suwon, where I flushed five from a sheltered pond on 6 April. I saw another pair at the same place 20 April, but was unable to collect them. They were all very shy and wild. Gore and Won (1971) described the Mandarin in Korea as a rare resident but fairly common passage migrant that occasionally overwinters in mild weather. De Schaunsee (1984) listed the Mandarin as breeding in Korea. Pyong-Oh Won told Savage (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996: 138) that Mandarin were ‘widely dispersed throughout the Korean peninsula’, and that although some are certainly resident others occur only on passage to and from their winter quarters in southern Japan. Oh and Chae (1999) reported on a group of wintering Mandarin Ducks at Talso-do near Cheju-do Island in the Cheju-haehyop (Strait) off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. Between January and March 1999, a maximum of 2,550 individuals were counted. Although the area is important for wintering Mandarin, this was the first record of a large wintering flock in Cheju. Pyong-Oh Won (pers. comm. to B. Hughes 1994) gave a winter total of 3,000 Mandarin on the Korean peninsula, where the population was expanding and small numbers were breeding. According to Tomek (1999: 57): This species is met with all over the country, most often during migration, less frequently in the breeding season. In winter (Nov–Feb) it was observed only in the southern provinces (Kangwon, Hwanghae, Kaesong). The presence of Mandarin Ducks in May and June, particularly in mountainous regions of the northern provinces, speaks of their nesting. And so does also FIEBIG’s (1993) information about a Mandarin Duck chick, taken at Samjiyon. The Mandarin Duck is a breeding species in the neighbouring countries: China (CHENG Tso-hsin, 1987), southern Primorsk (ELSUKOV 1985, KOLOMIITSEV 1985, LABYZUK 1985, SHIBNEV 1985, ANDRONOV 1985, ROSLYAKOV 1985, LER 1989), Japan (KURODA 1975, DISTRIB 1978, KAKIZAVA 1981) and South Korea (GORE & WON Pyong-Oh 1971, WON Pyong-Oh 1987a, 1993). On the basis of its distribution in the neighbouring regions and the places of its observation in North Korea in the breeding season it may be assumed that the Mandarin Duck nests throughout the country, though much more rarely in the southern provinces than in the northern ones. [Authors’ names capitalised as in Tomek 1999]. The Asian Changbai mountain range – the highest peak of which, Paekdusan, rises to 2,744m – separates the Korean peninsula from the rest of the continent, providing an effective barrier that prevents the dispersal of Mandarin further north. The Birds Korea Blueprint (2010) aims to support continuing conservation measures as part of the Republic of Korea’s (RoK) commitment to reduce its rate of biodiversity losses. The

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Blueprint’s objective is the conservation of avian biodiversity in the RoK’s part of the Yellow Sea Blueprint Region (YSBR) between North and South Korea and China. The YSBR is at the heart of the East Asia/Australasian Flyway (see below and Chapter 2). The YSBR is under immense development pressure through the reclamation of wetlands, which is the principal driver of the decline of avian biodiversity in the region, caused by pollution, dams and riverine infrastructure development, especially the Four Rivers Project. To achieve the BKB’s objectives a number of interrelated steps need to be taken, including (a) the identification of the most important locations for biodiversity; (b) an appreciation of the trends in populations of key species such as the Mandarin, and the current state of their habitats; and (c) the formation of conservation initiatives. Research so far has identified over 30 Ramsardefined internationally important wetlands within the YSBR (Moores 1999) and more than 20 Important Bird Areas (BirdLife International 2004b). The Four Rivers Project involves further massive construction and consequent potential wildlife habitat loss along many of the RoK’s main rivers, including the Han, Nakong, Geum and Yeongsan. Seasonal patterns of precipitation in the RoK have resulted in historically seasonally shallow rivers and extensive flood plain wetlands, providing habitats for a wide range of water-loving birds, including Mandarin. Especially since the late-20th century, the majority of rivers in the RoK have become modified by human interference, and much of their surrounding wetlands have been reclaimed for agricultural purposes. This is known to have caused the loss of several species of waterbirds and the localisation or decline of others, such as the Mandarin. Nevertheless, many stretches of river remain of international importance to globally threatened waterbird species, and need urgent conservation measures to comply with the Ramsar Strategic Plan (2009–15). The Four Rivers Project (begun in 2009) puts at risk many of those (50) remaining wetlands (even such small ones as the 50ha Mokpo Namhang Urban Wetland, Mokopo City, Jeollanam Province near the Yeongsan estuary), through further large-scale construction, deep dredging and the building of 16 new dams. These will collectively have a negative impact on around 50 species of birds (including 30 waterfowl species such as the Mandarin) and will reduce the conservation value of at least one Ramsar site and eight Important Bird Areas (Li et al. 2009b; Moores et al. 2010). In the East Asian/Australasian Flyway, which stretches from Alaska in the USA and Ussuriland in the Russian Far East (breeding ground of the Mandarin Duck) through east and south-east Asia to Australia and New Zealand, more than 250 populations of waterbirds involving 50 million individuals migrate annually. These migrating birds are all affected by human activities, and with almost 50% of the world’s human population living in the Flyway the impact on such birds can be considerable. Causes of the decline of waterbird species using the Flyway include loss of habitat as a consequence of land development for industrial and agricultural usage, loss of inland wetlands due to agricultural intensification, changed water levels as a result of increases in demand by the human population, and a decline in water quality due to pollution (BKB 2010). Formed in 1994, the Partnership for the East Asia/Australasian Flyway (EAAFP) aims to support international cooperation (in particular with the People’s Republic of China) for the conservation of migratory waterbirds and their habitats through the protection and maintenance of the Flyway Site Network, which consists of around 100 sites which meet criteria similar to those required by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. For all migratory waterbird species – especially Anatidae (ducks, geese and swans) and Gruidae (cranes) – the Yellow Sea Eco-Region, which is given high priority by the EAAFP, provides ‘staging-posts’ and ‘refuelling’ opportunities for migrating birds. In an attempt to determine the migration pathways of waterbird populations more accurately, the EAAFP is trying to improve the international coordination of colour marking

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of migratory waterbirds using the Yellow Sea Eco-Region (BKB 2010). The Mandarin Duck has been designated Natural Monument No. 327 in the Republic of Korea (Won 1993). BirdLife International (2012) lists Bukchon as an Important Bird Area in South Korea, where ‘this species has triggered IBA criteria’. If, as has recently been mooted, North and South Korea were to be reunited and controlled politically from Seoul in the free state of the South, the status, distribution and numbers of Mandarin Ducks might be more easily and accurately assessed. Pyong-Oh Won (pers. comm. to B. Hughes 1994) said that a small number of Mandarin Ducks bred in North Korea, and that some 3,000 wintered in the peninsula, where the population was increasing. Tomek (2002: 209) describes the Mandarin as a breeding, migratory and wintering species in North Korea and as an ‘uncommon resident’ in South Korea. The figures given in Table 5 differ markedly from those provided for 2002 by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, which suggested a total Mandarin population for China, Japan, Russia and North and South Korea in 2002 of over 80,000 individuals, with China and Japan having the majority of wintering birds and those two countries plus Russia the main breeding populations (Japan 50,000; China 30,000; Korea 3,000; Russia 5,000–10,000, although the ‘hunting administration’ claims Russia’s breeding population was between 20,500 and 26,800). These totals again differ considerably from those given by Shibaev (2001), who suggested a total world population of no more than 25,000 pairs (Japan 4,500–5,000; China less than 1,000; Russia not more than 15,000). The population in Primorskiy Kray (Ussuriland), which decreased in the 1970s, started to recover in the following decade. Between 10,000 and 13,000 were breeding there in 1983–90, and there were at least 500 pairs in the Khabarovsk Territory in 1984 (Roslyakov 1985). During the Asian Waterfowl Census (1990) 13,361 Mandarin were counted in Japan in January, 2,332 in China and two in Hong Kong (Perennou et al. 1990). The global total of Mandarin Ducks in 2002 was given by Wetlands International at between 65,000 and 66,000 individuals – totals confirmed in 2009 by BirdLife International (2012) which admitted, however, that the data quality was ‘poor’. In 2011, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust gave a world total of around 80,0003, of which 7,000 were in Britain. It is apparent from the foregoing figures that the total number of Mandarin Ducks worldwide is highly speculative. The Mandarin Duck is today classified by the International Union for Conservation of Table 5. Native range population estimates for the Mandarin Duck. Breeding range

Wintering or core non-breeding range

Pairs

Trend

Far East (Russia, China, China 20,000 Declining North Korea)

Source Miyabayashi & Mundkur 1999

Eastern Asia Korea 5,000 Declining Callaghan & Green 1993 Japan and South Japan 40,000 Stable Kuril Islands

Miyabayashi & Mundkur 1999

Taiwan Taiwan 350–500 Stable Yuan-Hsun, University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, in litt.

Main source: Delany & Scott 2002.

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Nature (IUCN) as a species of ‘Least Concern’. In the Far East, BirdLife International (2012) lists temperate forests and inland wetlands (permanent freshwater lakes of >8ha) as primary Mandarin breeding and non-breeding habitats, with other inland wetlands (bogs, marshes, swamps, peatlands, and permanent rivers, streams and creeks) as of secondary importance. Mandarin caught in the Far East are used principally as domestic ‘pets’ (both nationally and for export) and nationally as a source of human food (See Note 1).

Taiwan Chang (1980) refers to the Mandarin Duck as a ‘rare resident’ on the island of Taiwan, where he lists it as occurring on Sun Moon Lake (727m asl)4, Chichtuan (1,180m), Tsuifeng Lake (1,500m) and Tachien (Techi) Dam.

Burma and India Mandarin Ducks are known to breed, and probably overwinter, in the province of Yunnan in south-west China, close to the borders of Burma, Laos and Vietnam. For many years small numbers of Mandarin have been seen in Burma and even further west on the Dibru River in the state of Assam (Baker 1902) and on the Senapati River in Manipur (Grimson 1934) in neighbouring India. At an apparently unrecorded date, two pairs were shot in the Gangaw Hills in Assam. These were probably vagrants, but small discrete subpopulations may be established in Burma and Assam (see also Ostapenko 1997). In February 1999 three Mandarin were seen on the Sat Tal lakes near Nainitel, Uttaranchal (Uttar Pradesh) close to Christian Ashram and the border with Nepal in northern India, at an altitude of 1,300–1,450m asl. Apart from the single Nepalese record (q.v.) this is the highest from the region and the most western of the native Asian population (Vrezec et al. 2005).

Nepal; Bangladesh; Thailand; Hong Kong; Vietnam; Mongolia The Mandarin Duck has been recorded on only one occasion in both Nepal and Bangladesh, presumably as a vagrant from the native Asian population (Vrezec et al. 2005). The first record of a Mandarin in Thailand was in January 1983 at Ban Lung Tua in Phitsanulok Province in west-central Thailand. In March 1991 a second record occurred in Chiang Saen in Chiang Rai Province in the north. Both records were probably also vagrants from the native Asian population (Luijendijk 1993). Mandarin Ducks have also been recorded as vagrants in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Mongolia (BirdLife International 2009).

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Notes 1. ‘The flesh is very palatable, though the bird is far too magnificent in its life to be killed for food’ (Caldwell & Caldwell 1931: 390). ‘Mandarin duck in China are rather dirty feeders, often eating snails, small mice, fish spawn etc., and consequently are well known to have an unpleasant taste’ (Savage 1952: 18). 2. I am indebted to Mike Wilson of the Alexander Library of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology in Oxford for drawing my attention to this reference, and for kindly translating it from Russian into English for me and for annotating it. 3. The Honolulu Zoo’s website (22 March 2011) said that ‘the current Asian population may be under 20,000’! 4. According to Wikipedia, the altitude is 748m.

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Chapter 2

Conservation in the Far East For many years, Mandarin Ducks have been protected by law from shooting in China, Japan and Russian Ussuriland. Although some are ‘accidentally’ shot by people who claim they cannot differentiate in flight between Mandarin and other species, and in many localities poaching is rife, the principal threat to the survival of the species in much of its natural range is loss of habitat (as it is with many other species throughout the world). In the case of the Mandarin, this is mainly due to commercial logging (which destroys vast areas of the deciduous forests that the species needs for breeding and feeding) and the reclamation of land for agricultural and industrial purposes. Especially in Ussuriland, Russian, Korean and American timber companies have clear-felled many thousands of hectares of prime Mandarin habitat, and formerly pristine wetlands are being drained or polluted to meet the ever-increasing demands of industry, mining and farming. In China, which is rapidly becoming an economic world power, similar devastation to Mandarin habitat is taking place to accommodate the increasing human population, much of which is being moved into the north-east of the country, which has for long been one of the Mandarin’s strongholds. Widespread deforestation of the Mandarin’s habitat in China has been a major factor in the country becoming the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. China recognises the problem, and in 2010 passed a $47 billion green energy Bill and is investing heavily in wind and solar power. The ability of China to continue to develop its economy without a massive increase in carbon emissions is critical to combating climate change. Again, China acknowledges the dilemma, and in conformity with the Kyoto Protocol (which expired at the end of 2012) has undertaken to reduce emissions per GDP unit by as much as 45% by 2020. To deliver these

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cuts, China is overhauling and replacing its old coal-fired power stations and is in the forefront in carbon-capture technology. China is also a leader in nuclear power as a clean and reliable source of energy, and is constructing more nuclear power stations in the country than the rest of the world combined. Unfortunately for the Mandarin, it is the use of hydroelectricity that holds the greatest promise as a source of ‘clean’ power in China. With big projects like the massive Three Gorges Dam in place, China already generates more than 16% of its electricity from hydropower, but this will need to be considerably increased if the country is to meet its carbon emissions target and achieve economic growth (Deripaska 2010). At least some hydroelectricity projects are likely to have a profoundly negative impact on Mandarin by reducing the amount of available habitat. In 2010 China admitted that the Three Gorges Dam project, which cost more than US$23 billion (£14 billion) and which necessitated the forced relocation of some 1.4 million people, has already caused ‘urgent’ problems, including drought, which will adversely affect both the human and Mandarin populations. Another result of China’s insatiable desire for high-grade timber and massive domestic deforestation has been the importation into the country of vast amounts of foreign timber, with disastrous consequences for the donor countries. (See also Chapter 1). To take but one example, in just a few months in 2009 over US$200m worth of rosewood Dalbergia spp. (prized by furniture- and musical instrument-makers for its rich colour, durability and characteristic grain) was exported from Madagascar (where it was largely replaced by the introduced SpreadingLeaved Pine Pinus patula (Richardson 2011)) to China. In September 2009, after months during which up to US$460,000 worth of rosewood was being illegally felled every day (much of it in the 235,000ha Masoala National Park in the north-east), the cash-impoverished new government (formed after the collapse of the preceding administration in the previous March) reversed a ban of 2000 prohibiting the export of rosewood and legalised the sale of stockpiled logs. Under international pressure the ban was reinstated in April 2010, but illegal logging continues. This has had the effect of driving up the price of rice and fish (the country’s staple diet), since artisan fishermen and rice-farmers are now working in the forests, and the loss of trees is causing a decline in many endemic and threatened lemur (Lemuriformes) species (Draper 2010). This, and similar problems in other countries (wwf.org.uk/whatwoodyouchoose), is an important side-effect of the deforestation of the Mandarin’s habitat in China. China lies at the heart of the East Asian/Australasian Flyway, and its surviving wetlands and other natural areas are of great importance to the many millions of birds, including Mandarin Ducks, that traverse the country en route to and from their breeding grounds in north-east Asia and their wintering areas further south. These natural sites, however, are often regarded as unproductive and are being degraded, due to unsustainable exploitation by the human population, and converted to other land uses. The coastal wetlands in densely populated eastern China are home to a number of globally threatened waterbird species, and are of particular conservation concern because many of them are located near major cities and other places of human conurbation, and face drainage and conversion for urban, industrial and agricultural purposes. Programmes to monitor and survey migratory birds, such as the Mandarin, have only very recently been initiated in China, and there is thus only limited information available regarding migratory species and key sites for their conservation. This shortage of baseline data is mirrored by a lack of awareness among government agencies – and the public – of China’s importance for migratory birds and of the ecological value provided by wetlands and other natural habitats. Land-use planning in China often takes place without adequate information on biodiversity and ecosystems, or a true appreciation of the real value of these natural resources.

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Currently, such organisations as BirdLife International and its affiliate the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society (HKBWS) are monitoring key sites for migratory birds in China, and strengthening civil society and government capacity and action for the conservation of such migratory species as the Mandarin and their wetland habitats. In addition, civil society birdwatching and conservation organisations are being mobilised to strengthen the China Coastal Waterbird Census (CCWC) by covering more wetland sites, by improving the methodology and increasing the capacity of participants. There are many extensive coastal wetlands in eastern China, including over 25 designated Important Bird Areas, which are of vital importance to waterbirds, such as Mandarin, that migrate by way of the East Asian/Australasian Flyway. The CCWC was established in 2005 in conjunction with the HKBWS to accumulate new data on migratory waterbirds and the threats that they face (China Coastal Waterbird Census 2009). In 2010 the CCWC conducted monthly waterbird counts at 11 key coastal wetlands in eastern China (in Liaoning, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Fujian and Guangdong). In Japan, which for many years was believed to have the largest population of Mandarin Ducks in the world outside Britain, the position may be rather less serious. Although overwintering numbers seem to be secure, and contrary to the position in China and Russia the population may actually be increasing, breeding facilities are not ideal. The provision of more nesting-boxes would help to fill this need, and a concerted programme of ringing both breeding and wintering birds would provide invaluable data on the species’ movements in the Far East. After the 55-year rule of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of Japan, which has been in power since the autumn of 2009, has, under the leadership of Naoto Kan, who was appointed Prime Minister in June 2010 but resigned in August 2011, begun attempting to redress the deficiencies of its predecessor by discussing how best to defend Japan’s woodlands from foreign acquisition and secure jobs, growth and fiscal probity. According to Kan, Japan’s forests are an unexploited asset that could, correctly handled and adequately funded, provide additional jobs and increased human prosperity (Lewis 2010). Some of these forests include an important deciduous and nut-bearing timber tree, the Keyaki Zelkova serrata, whose lustrous wood is much in demand by cabinet-makers. The manner in which those forests are managed is thus of prime importance to the Mandarin’s survival. According to a former head of the Forest Agency in Japan, the source of the problem has been bureaucratic lethargy and political machinations dating from the middle of the last century. Since 1873 there have been only two attempts to assess Japan by size of property and current ownership, neither of which were very successful. The first, under Itagaki Taisuke, undertaken after the demise of feudal government under Emperor Mutsuhito (Meiji), remarkably placed responsibility for the measurement of their property on the landowners themselves. Since owners were taxed on the extent of their property, the incentive to understate the size of such assets (aided by the convenient physical elasticity of the straw rods that served as measuring tapes in the mid19th century) was considerable (Lewis 2010). The second survey, instigated by Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida in 1951, was more comprehensive, but strict privacy laws, local registries and the continued desire for tax evasion resulted in painfully slow progress (Smyth 2010). In terms of land-ownership, Japan is one of the world’s most subdivided countries, with forests and other land separated into some 200 million individual plots (among a human population of some 130 million), many of which are either nominally owned by long-dead individuals or, in the absence of proper records, the current ownership of which is untraceable. There are at present no restrictions on the foreign ownership of land in Japan, and property-owning rights are strongly in favour of the individual. Land cannot easily be seized or commandeered by the state. Such fragmentation of potential Mandarin habitat and the inability of the government to acquire and protect such habitat must be threats to the species’ survival.

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Japan is also very inadequately surveyed; the most optimistic estimate is that accurate assessments are known for only 40% of all land, the majority of which is in urban localities, with almost 70% of the forested areas (including the UNESCO World Heritage Kii Sanchi mountain range in southern Honshu) virtually or entirely unsurveyed. With a view to addressing the situation, the government has decided that an accurate assessment of the country’s forest area would be a useful initial measure; the aim is to have half of Japan accounted for by 2020 (Smyth 2010) and the whole of the country by 2060 (Lewis 2010). The densely forested Mandarin-friendly countryside is potentially a magnet for avaricious developers – in particular the Chinese; with woodland and mountain prices at historically low levels, the total hectarage of forest sales has doubled during the past decade (Lewis 2010), and sales to foreign investors have been particularly high. The Tokyo Foundation’s head of research, Hideki Hirano, has been quoted as believing that overseas buyers may be acquiring Japanese woodland not only for its timber but also for the underlying mineral and water resources, the acquisition of which would necessarily entail the destruction of large areas of forest. If this were to happen, it is likely that cheap forest land could be acquired as a carbon offset and either exploited by purchasers in a bogus attempt to establish their non-existent environmental credentials, or utilised as an advance investment by future emission traders (Lewis 2010). The trading of carbon offsets in the form of forest credits is increasing, and is attracting support from governments worldwide. To some people it is the most effective tool available in the fight to combat global climate change, while to others it leaves the door open to the exploitation of forests as just another tradeable commodity for unscrupulous investors (Pagnamenta 2010). Deforestation is responsible for around 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the accompanying loss of habitat affects many woodland species such as the Mandarin Duck; attaching a tradeable value to forestry is seen by many as the best way of ensuring that trees are not felled. Deforestation can be prevented either by paying for tree preservation or by making use of offset schemes to provide substitutes for wood-based products. A series of voluntary offset plans are in place, and mandatory forest credit schemes have emerged (Pagnamenta 2010). Only if such stratagems are successful, and if the Japanese government shows the will to halt the wholesale destruction of the nation’s native woodland, will the habitat of the Mandarin Duck (and other woodland species) be adequately preserved. The problem is exacerbated by replanting with coniferous species rather than with deciduous trees such as oaks Quercus spp. which provide the acorns on which Mandarin largely subsist in autumn and winter (Y. Fujimaki, pers. comm.) There is reason to believe that in central and northern Honshu, which suffers from a shortage of natural nest-cavities and where thousands of Mandarin overwinter, up to onethird might remain to breed if nest-sites in the form of boxes were provided. The Oshidori [the Japanese name for the Mandarin] Trust, founded by Yuzo Murofushi, which has for many years had such a project near Lake Ashi on Honshu (Austin and Kuroda 1953), could play a leading role in such a programme. Ringing birds is a recognised stratagem for tracing their migration patterns and populations. In Japan, ringing is organised by The Wild Bird Society of Japan and is primarily targeted at game birds rather than wildfowl such as Mandarin. Adult female Mandarin are best ringed while nesting in boxes, and males can be enticed into a variety of traps placed near the water. Ducklings are best marked by tags (similar to those used for fin-tagging fish) fixed between the webs on their feet. (See also Appendix 6.) Mandarin Ducks in the Far East are legally protected (RDBRF n.d.), so the only ways of recovering rings, other than by natural mortality or from illegally shot birds, is through trapping, in both their nesting and wintering areas, or the recovery of females from nest-boxes. If, for

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example, females are ringed while breeding in Ussuriland, they may subsequently be trapped in the winter in Japan, and then found again on their nest in Russia in the following spring. Or, a wintering female trapped and ringed in, say, South Korea, may be found nesting six months later in northern China. A ringed male, shot ‘accidentally’ or by a poacher in, for example, Japan, will provide valuable data should the ring be recovered and handed in to the authorities. The data provided from such a programme are invaluable in adding to the somewhat meagre sum of knowledge about Mandarin in their native range, and in helping biologists to formulate projects for their conservation. Consortia of Russian, Chinese, Japanese, South Korean and American scientists have been working to preserve natural habitats in the Lake Baikal region and in the Amur/Ussuri river basins along the Sino-Russo border. Although Lake Baikal lies outside the Mandarin Duck’s native range, such conservation measures in the Amur/Ussuri rivers region could be of great benefit to the Mandarin. The principal concern of conservationists in the Amur River basin has been the proposal to construct the Khinganskiy Dam in the Yevreyskaya Autonómnaya Oblast’, with the concomitant flooding of vast areas of prime wildfowl habitat. The ecological impact on the environment is likely to be considerable, especially in areas of native forest, but the effect on Mandarin, is unlikely to be great, since the locality is on the western edge of the species’ breeding range (Y. Fujimaki, pers. comm.). Since, however, the area is close to where Mandarin do commonly occur, conservation measures in these border areas are important. Equally disturbing is the wholesale felling of mature forests throughout the region, mainly by Russian, Korean and American timber companies. Corrupt local officials, politicians, private citizens and even members of the armed forces have been selling off every available commercial asset, even in officially designated nature reserves. The task of attempting to preserve this vast wilderness area – one of the last and largest of its kind in the northern hemisphere – is a formidable challenge to human ingenuity. Funded jointly by the United States and Japan, the Socio-Ecological Union established an 11,000ha wildlife sanctuary and nature reserve along the Amur River. Following this project, the Union asked the governments of Russia and China to carry out a study of the environmental impact of the Khinganskiy Dam on the Amur River basin. Also suggested was the establishment of a reserve at Lake Khanka in the southern reaches of the Amur north of Vladivostok. Although it is primarily intended to benefit the six species of crane Grus spp. that inhabit the region (four of which are threatened), this international project should also be of immeasurable benefit to the Mandarin Duck. As is the case with many other species throughout the world, the principal cause of the decline of all waterbirds in the Far East (including, of course, the Mandarin) has been loss of habitat due, in the main, to the reclamation of land for agriculture and industrial/infrastructure development. Recommendations, of particular relevance to the Mandarin, based on articles contained within the Birds Korea Blueprint (2010) are: 1. The urgent need to incorporate the Millennium Development Goal of Environmental Sustainability and the target of reducing the rate of biodiversity loss into national planning and national statements relating to major infrastructure development (whether by GO, NGO or academic). 2. The urgent need for relevant bodies (whether GO, NGO or academic) to provide scientific data and analysis of that data relating to the rate of biodiversity loss and the rate of biodiversity gain (if any) through restoration or habitat creation.

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3. Statements and reports relating to biodiversity conservation and key issues of concern (whether made by GO, NGO or academic) need to contain clear citation and explanation on methods of survey and analysis that underline these statements. 4. In line with existing guidance … well-supported mechanisms need to be established that facilitate regular, honest and non-political discussion on major issues of biodiversity conservation between those specialising in the field, including GO, NGO and academic, and the agreement by all parties to use data that is demonstrably accurate and open in prioritising conservation actions and targets. 5. Areas … that are proven, on the basis of internationally agreed criteria, to be of high importance to the conservation of avian biodiversity (more especially sites that meet Ramsar waterbird criteria and Important Bird Area criteria) need to be recognised as priority sites for conservation at the national level, and conserved accordingly. In Russia, considerable harm was caused to Mandarin by a particular way of transporting logs from felled trees by water. This method was normally used during the spring floods, when instead of being roped together to form rafts each individual log had a steering device fixed to it and there were also provisions for trapping the logs temporarily or when they had arrived at their destination. When this method of transportation was in use, some logs lost their buoyancy and sank, thus blocking river channels used by Mandarin. Fortunately, this practice has now been banned by the Russian Federation (Shibaev 2001). The Mandarin Duck Aix galericulata was included in the ICUN Red List of Threatened Animals (1996), Appendix 2 of the Bonn Convention and appendices of bilateral agreements between Russia and Japan and Russia and the Republic of Korea on the conservation of migratory birds. A small part of the population is protected in the zapovedniks (strict nature reserves) of Kedrovaya-Pad’, Ussuriysk, Lazo, Sikhote-Alin’, Bol-schekhekhtsirsxij and Khingansk. To conserve the species effectively, there needs to be a stricter regime for checking whether the rules governing the exploitation of forest reserves in restricted riverine strips are being adhered to. Measures should be taken to attract Mandarin to riverine forests which have been disturbed by logging by erecting nest-boxes (which are readily accepted), initially in or near existing nature reserves, and a nature reserve should be established in the Bikin Valley. Posters showing Mandarin in various stages of plumage should be made available to hunters, and the start of the autumn shooting season should be delayed until late September, by which time most Mandarin are leaving their breeding grounds (Shibaev 2001). As a last resort in the conservation of the species, there is the possibility of returning Mandarin to the Far East from the thriving British population. This procedure has been successfully carried out on a number of occasions elsewhere with other species, e.g. Père David’s Deer Elaphurus davidianus from England to China. British Mandarin would provide not only a broadly based gene pool but, being free-flying birds descended from wild-caught individuals rather than captive stock, also birds able to establish and survive in a wild environment. British Mandarin imported from the wetlands of China in the early years of the 20th century adapted successfully to life outside their native range, and there seems no reason to suppose that such a return to the Far East would be unsuccessful. Thus, in a worst-case scenario, the survival of the Mandarin Duck in Asia could be in British hands.

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Chapter 3

The Mandarin Duck in Oriental legend, literature and art Christopher Savage (1952; in Shurtleff & Savage 1996; pers. comm.), who for some years lived in Japan, reviewed the status of the Mandarin Duck in Oriental legend, literature and art. From the earliest years of the Mandarin’s lengthy known history in the Far East, it has been admired by Japanese and Chinese Buddhists for its beauty and fabled virtuous qualities. Writers in poetry and prose have woven verses, odes and allegories around the bird, while practitioners in the visual arts have incorporated the Mandarin’s likeness into textiles, paintings, carvings and sculptures in a wide variety of media. In Japan and China, Mandarin represent the attributes of conjugal fidelity, loyalty and marital harmony. The ancient affection for the species originated in the belief that Mandarin mate for life and that they display a mutual devotion for each other that is unusual among ducks. Adults form pairs early in the breeding season, and in the Far East, where the species is migratory, often before they arrive at their winter quarters between November and March. Although pairs of all perching ducks (and many other species) indulge in the practice of mutual preening, this habit of the Mandarin probably reinforced the impression in the Far East that the birds were a devoted monogamous couple. The frequency of a Mandarin pair’s courtship display and their habit of ejecting intruders must have added to the impression by ancient observers of their mutual commitment and affection. One of the most endearing

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characteristics of a paired Mandarin duck and drake is the way in which, especially in bad weather, they perch on a branch close together and side by side. This has led to the Chinese habit of sometimes referring to a pair of anything by associating it with the Mandarin; thus there is, for example, a Mandarin Duck double pillow, a Mandarin Duck double bed-cover and a Mandarin Duck sword with a pair of blades emerging from a single hilt. The idea of the Mandarin Duck as representing a model of fidelity, mutual affection and devotion may have originated with Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha, ‘The Great Enlightened [or Awakened] One’; born perhaps c. 560–568 BC), who speaks of a legend known as Buddha Ohmu Kyó about a pair of Mandarin foretelling the advent of the Lord. He apparently possessed a pair of Mandarin as pets, which so impressed him with their affectionate qualities that he subsequently made numerous mentions of the species in his writing and preaching. One of the later Wisdom Buddhas, Amida Buddha, reputedly assumed the form of a Mandarin Duck to lend emphasis to his lessons on compassion and consideration. This belief in the symbolism of the marital loyalty of the Mandarin Duck has descended into modern times. Sowerby (1940: 23) says that the ‘Mandarin teal [represents] conjugal felicity. Like the fêng huang [phoenix] this species has a dual name, yua–n ying [or yua–n ya–ng] signifying male and female, and it is always portrayed in pairs, the male in his brilliant mating plumage and the female in her dowdy dress’. Sowerby goes on to say (p. 24) that ‘the commonest duck or teal in Chinese art is the Mandarin teal’. (Because the plumages of adult male and female Mandarin are so dissimilar, yua–n ya–ng is often used in colloquial Cantonese to mean ‘an odd couple’ or ‘an unlikely pair’ – a mixing of two differing types in the same category, e.g. yua–nya–ng meaning ‘drink’ and yua–n-ya–ng meaning ‘fried rice’.)

Legend The Mandarin also has a long history in Japanese mythology, and various legends have, as a recurring theme, a duck or drake returning to its dead mate or appearing as an apparition in a dream. Typically of Japanese mythology, those concerning animals are presented in the form of a transformation. One of the most celebrated of such legends is that of an old falconer named Sonjo–, who after an unsuccessful day hunting came upon a pair of Mandarin on a river where, although he knew that the species was an emblem of conjugal felicity, he shot and killed the male. That night Sonjo– dreamed that a beautiful woman stood at his bedside weeping bitterly and imploring him to return to the scene of his crime. The following day, as he stood on the riverbank, the female Mandarin appeared and swam towards him and, after emerging from the water, in apparent grief tore open her breast with her bill and expired at his feet. Sonjo– is said to have been so stricken with remorse that he renounced hunting and became a priest. After his death, the people of his village, touched by the tragic story, erected a shrine which survives to this day in the town of Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, where a stone engraved with the story and a commemorative cedarwood stake can still be seen. In Japan, where Mandarin occur on numerous village streams and temple ponds, the ancient symbolism of the species persists in many forms. The legends of the Mandarin survive in the annual Oshidori (the Japanese name for the species) festival in Utsunomiya organised by the Oshidori Zuka Ai Gokai Society. Even today, as a symbol of their mutual devotion and fidelity, a young couple may receive as a wedding gift a pair of small, gilded pottery bells in the form of Mandarin.

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Literature The earliest known references to the Mandarin in Oriental literature are to be found in the writings of the Chinese philosopher K’ung Fu-tse, ‘The Master K’ung’ (551–479 BC), Latinised as Confucius, who, in his magisterial Ch’un Ch’iu, recommended his disciples to collect odes and songs to promote a harmonious society and encourage peace and wisdom. One such, translated by Waley (1946), runs as follows: Mandarin ducks were in flight, We netted them, we snared them. Long life to our Lord, Well may blessings and rewards be his! There are Mandarin ducks on the dam, Folding their left wings. Long life to our Lord Well may blessings for ever be his! Such is the affection by the Japanese for the species, that in Bibai City, north-west of Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido, there is even an NGO, Nihon Oshidori-no Kai, devoted to the study of the Mandarin Duck (Y. Miyabayashi, pers. comm.) Frequently the first half of each stanza of these odes is in the form of an allegory, the allusion and symbolism of which are often unclear to all but a scholar of Chinese. In the above example the mention of the folding of the left wing indicates ‘blessing heaped upon blessing’, an allusion that occurs frequently elsewhere; it may have arisen from the Mandarin’s habit of pointing with its bill to its folded wing during courtship display while raising one wing after the other to rearrange its plumage. An ode entitled ‘A Song of Chaste Women’ by the lyrical poet Meng-tse or Meng Chiao, Latinised as Mencius (372–289 BC), during the Warring States Period, exemplifies the fidelity of the Mandarin duck and drake as a model for human behaviour: The Wu-tung trees grow old together, The Mandarin duck and drake pair for life, Even so the chaste woman prides herself on following Her husband to the tomb, And throws away her life. I vow no waves shall ruffle the surface of my passion Which is still as the waters of an ancient well. A poem in a not dissimilar vein entitled ‘The Beautiful Woman’ by the Chinese lyrical poet Tu Fu (712–770 AD) during the T’ang dynasty (618–907 AD) runs as follows: My husband holds me in light esteem, But his new mistress seems as beautiful as jade. Even the morning glory has its passing hour. The Mandarin duck and drake do not roost apart, But wrapt in his favourite’s smile, How can he hear his old love’s sighs.

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Another verse, by the Chinese T’ang lyrical poet Po-Chü-I (772–846 AD) quoted by Jenyns (1940) and entitled ‘The Song of Never-Ending Grief ’ describes how: The mandarin duck and drake tiles glitter coldly in the hoar frost, The Emperor is cold beneath the kingfisher quilt, For who is there to share it with him? Haiku is a succinct and characteristic form of Japanese poetry, often expressed in the form of triplets, that captures more than one sentiment in a small number of words. The best-known haiku of the Mandarin (quoted by Savage in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) was composed by Yosa Buson (1716–83) at the Ruo-anji Temple in Kyoto, where there is a small pond known as an Oshidori-ike (Mandarin duck pond) that was at one time frequented by Mandarin. Mandarin ducks, Epitome of beauty The winter wood. Other haiku referring to Mandarin Ducks, all quoted by Savage, include: Mandarin ducks; A weasel is peeping at the old pond (Buson) The drake and his wife Paddling among green Tufts of grass are Playing house (Issa) Snow falls lightly On the wings of the mandarin ducks: The stillness (Shiki) Evening snow falling A pair of mandarin ducks On an ancient lake (Shiki) The morning tempest Sees even mandarin ducks Go separate ways (Riho) Take an angry man And show him mandarin ducks – they never break up (Anon)

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’Tis winter and snow time The cold wind blows hard And roughens the water; But, peacefully, the Mandarin swim on (Anon. c. 400 BC) A layer of frost, And on top of that a snow, Slowly deepening. “We will perish if we part,” The mandarin ducks are crying (Toshigaki Maharu, 1830s) For mandarin ducks Thin ice is a wedding cup for a thousand years (Anon) The mandarin duck was faithful How different from the king! (Anon. c. 500 BC) Why even the [mandarin] duck separate sometimes. It is, is it not, a mischief Played by a storm in the morn. (Anon. 19th century)

Art The earliest known Chinese painting of a Mandarin Duck dates from the Sung dynasty (960– 1279 AD). The artist, Tsao Chung (Chao Chung or Cho–-Sho–) has shown in black ink a stone and a flower beneath which rest a pair of Mandarin. Although he was a native of Chengdu in present-day Szechuan, some 800km outside the Mandarin’s present range, Savage (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) says that the quality of the work suggests that the artist was familiar with the species. During the succeeding Mongolian Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), the nobility wore robes incorporating highly stylised representations of various animals, one of which was the Mandarin Duck. These woven or embroidered images were normally restricted to an ornamental collar and/or to a square patch on the front and back of the garment (that on the front being divided vertically to allow the wearer to put it on and take it off) and to a band at knee-level. The Court of the succeeding Ming dynasty (1368–1644) continued the use of animal decorations to robes, but by the late 14th century these had become formalised to reflect the wearer’s status and rank. Mammals, which were believed to symbolise courage, were assigned to the military, and birds, considered to be emblems of literary talent, were allotted to civil officials and their wives (Wrigglesworth 2009). Initially, officials of the sixth and seventh ranks wore either egrets or Mandarin Ducks on their robes, but subsequently, when a single species was specified for each

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grade, the Mandarin was assigned to the seventh rank of official, which were those who dealt with foreign, including of course British, traders – hence the term employed for bureaucrats in general (British Trust for Ornithology 2010a). In passing, it seems curious that a bird held in such high esteem by the Chinese should be accorded such a lowly rank. According to Savage (1952) the name ‘Mandarin’ is derived from the Sanskrit mantrin, meaning counsellor or minister of state. Mandarin retained this position during the Manchu Ch’ing or Qing dynasty (1644–1912), when the Republic of China, founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1912, ended dynastic rule. Thus, for more than 500 years, one of the main and most interesting depictions of the Mandarin Duck was on these badges of rank worn by Chinese officials and their wives. Although the rank was specified, the design of the badge was not and was subject to a wide variety of interpretations, invariably beautifully crafted. The fibres used were normally silk, sometimes incorporating gold or silver thread, while badges from the 17th century occasionally bear traces of male Indian Peafowl Pavo cristatus herl. A split example (therefore a front badge) of about 1870 worked in satin stitch, shows a Mandarin drake preparing to take flight from a rock surrounded by billowing water and waves. The five Taoist bats (Wu fu) of happiness representing the Five Blessings (longevity/conjugal felicity, health, wealth/achievement, love of virtue/good fortune and a peaceful death) fly in the clouds in the sky above. Not dissimilar to robes of office is the furosode, usually made of satin and silk, worn by a bride as part of her wedding trousseau. Savage (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996: 184) illustrates one of between 1750 and 1850 on which, among stylised blossoms on the back, are embroidered in silk thread two pairs of Mandarin Ducks to wish the bride well in her married life. Mandarin are frequently thus portrayed in conjunction with flowers, including those of the Sunflower Helianthus annuus, Tree Peony Paeonia moutan (symbolising spring), lotus Zizyphus sp. (summer), chrysanthemum Chrysanthemum sp. (autumn), plum Prunus sp. (emblem of winter, and thus often portrayed with snow-laden blossom), Rose Mallow Althaea rosea and Wisteria Kraunhia chinensis (Lever 1977). The Emperor Shomu (reigned 724–49 AD) was an important Japanese art collector and admirer of China. At his Shosoin (Treasure House) were numerous examples of the Mandarin Duck shown on both religious artefacts and on secular pieces, some of which were among the earliest depictions of Mandarin in the round and are thus of great significance in the history of the species in Oriental art. Among the most important pieces in the Shosoin were immense Chinese bronze mirrors incorporating images of Mandarin Ducks. Mandarin are also an important feature in many Japanese (usually silk) screens known as byobu (‘protection from the wind’), which normally comprise up to as many as a dozen panels depicting the months of the year. During the Edo period (1603–1868), these screens elegantly combined painting, poetry and calligraphy into an art form known as waka-e (‘poetry painting’). These accomplishments also merge in the kacho-ga, or bird-and-flower works, of the Japanese artist Ando Hiroshige (1797–1858), many of which feature Mandarin Ducks; calligraphy in each painting offers examples of haiku and the more lengthy kyoka extolling the merits of the species. Mandarin have for many years featured in Japanese and Chinese art in a wide variety of media, including pottery, porcelain, enamel, bronze, jade, lacquer, rose-quartz, wood (Lever 2009) and regrettably, ivory, which is frequently used by netsukeshi (carvers of netsuke). To take some examples at random, a large 18th century Chinese painted enamel basin in the State Hermitage Museum of St Petersburg (Arapova 1988), painted in the famille-rose palette, features a pair of Mandarin on a lotus pond beside rocks and an overhanging Tree Peony. Mandarin Ducks in bronze (sometimes in pairs) frequently appear in the form of incense-burners or censers. Each bird of a pair dating from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), in the Museu d’Arte

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Cinese ed Etnografico dei Missionari Saveriani in Parma, Italy (Mignini 2003) holds in its bill stems of lotus flowers, leaves and pods. On the back of each bird is a circular aperture with an openwork cover which, together with the bird’s open bill, releases the incense smoke. A particularly fine Chinese famille-rose porcelain snuff-bottle of the 20th century with an agate stopper is moulded on each side in relief with a pair of Mandarin swimming under lotus leaves and blossom. A Japanese naturalistically carved and painted pair of Mandarin of about 1920 swimming on waves is signed by the master Ichiboku to with kakitran. Another wooden carving of Mandarin Ducks, in an entirely different style, is a charming little (7.5cm long) model of a drake in ichi-i wood (Japanese Yew Taxus cuspidata) carved in the ancient ittôbori (‘single-knife carving’) manner which results in a characteristic stylised piece in a series of angular planes. This item was carved in the 1980s and bears the signature Suketomo, who was a master netsuke carver from Hida Takayama around 1800; the carver of this little piece is clearly a follower of the same school. Finally, some modern authors and artists are not too proud to hark back to past times. Among such are Paterson et al. (1990) with their charming retelling of a popular Japanese folk tale, delightfully illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon in the ukiyo-e style of 18th century Japanese woodcuts. Strangely, in view of its long association with the countries and their abundance of ancient domestic art and artefacts, I have been unable to trace any objects depicting the Mandarin Duck emanating from North or South Korea, though some must surely exist.

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Chapter 4

Introduction to England Perhaps surprisingly, the Mandarin Duck was apparently a former native species in Britain, so its appearance there now is, strictly speaking, as a reintroduction rather than an introduction. In his paper on the Pleistocene birds of southeastern England, Harrison (1985: 60) wrote: A species of special interest is the Mandarin Duck Aix galericulata. It may seem at first slightly improbable – [but] is really no more unlikely in terms of distribution than the Azure-winged Magpie Cyanopica cyanea which, were it not for its limited range in Spain and Portugal, we would assume to have evolved in isolation in southern China where it also occurs. Expanding on this, Harrison (in Harrison & Reid-Henry 1988: 14-15; 63) wrote: … the Forest Beds of north Norfolk during this [interglacial] period [the Cromerian] give us an interesting avifauna of [the Middle Pleistocene] some 600,000 years ago. It was a period probably a little warmer than our present one. From pollen and faunal evidence there appears to have been fresh water, both fen and river, and the sea nearby.

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There were open grassy areas, and some temperate mixed oak-woodland. A more unexpected species that might have used these habitats, and to which some of the bones from the Forest Beds appear assignable, is the Mandarin Duck Aix galericulata. The present natural occurrence of the species is the wetter oak-wood habitats of China …. The related Wood Duck A. sponsa occurs on temperate forest waters in North America. In the early Pleistocene, Europe and western Eurasia appear to have shared with eastern Eurasia and North America a richer and more varied temperate forest. With successive glaciations, during the ebb and flow of shifting vegetational zones, the eastto-west mountain masses and the seas of southern Europe, Mediterranean and Middle East appear to have presented increasing barriers. Re-colonization in warmer periods seems to have been less successful, leading to impoverishment of the flora, and with it an impoverishment of the fauna. The Mandarin appears to be part of what we have lost … Several bones found in the Cromerian forest beds of Norfolk seem to be referable to this species and to indicate its presence in the Middle Pleistocene. There is evidence of the presence of temperate oak forest at that time which would have been suitable for it. There is possible zoogeographic parallel in a quite unrelated species, the Azurewinged Magpie Cyanopica cyanea. … One subspecies of the Azure-winged Magpie is found in southern China and Japan.1 Another isolate subspecies [cooki] is near the opposite end of the chain in Spain and Portugal … Had the Iberian population not existed it would almost certainly be argued that this magpie had evolved only in the Far East. The occurrence of Mandarin Duck in western European temperate woodland in the past is at least as likely as the distribution pattern apparent in the magpie. This is confirmed by Yalden and Albarella (2009: 34) who say: ‘The Upper Freshwater Beds [the Cromerian Forest Beds] along the north Norfolk coast, especially at West Runton, have yielded an extensive fauna … of aquatic birds … Somewhat improbably, there also appears to be Mandarin’. Despite the above, to avoid confusion and repetition, I have used the term ‘introduction’ rather than ‘reintroduction’ throughout in describing the re-arrival of the Mandarin Duck in England. The earliest mention of the species in Europe appears in the writings of the Italian professor of natural science at the University of Bologna, Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), who in his Ornithologia (1599–1601) describes a bird he refers to as Querquedula2 indica that was portrayed in a painting brought to Rome by envoys from Japan. The Mandarin Duck was first introduced to England shortly before 1745, when a drawing of La Sarcelle3 de la Chine in the gardens of Sir Matthew Decker, Bt (1679–1749) at Richmond Green in Surrey was made by George Edwards (1694–1773) for his Natural History of Birds (1742–64). (As a director of the East India Company, Sir Matthew imported many alien species of animals and plants into England; see Introduction.) In his History of Birds (1743-64), Edwards (1743: 101) quotes from the German traveller Engelbert Kämpfer (or Kempfer) in his History of Japan and Siam4 (translated into English in 1727), one of the earliest Europeans to visit those countries: Of ducks alfo there are feveral different kinds; one kind, particularly, I cannot forbear mentioning becaufe of the furprifing Beauty of its Male, call’d Kinmodfui, which is fo great, that being shew’d its Picture in Colours, I could hardly believe my own Eyes till I faw the Bird itself, it being a very common one; its Feathers are wonderfully diverfified with the fineft Colours imaginable; about the Neck and Breaft chiefly they are Red; the Head is crowned

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with a moft magnificent topping: the Tail rifing obliquely, and the Wings ftanding up over the Back in a very fingular Manner, afford to the Eye a Sight as curious as uncommon.5 The Encyclopaedia Brittanica (3rd edition, 1777) says that ‘The galericulata, or Chinese teal of Edwards, has a hanging crest … The English in China give it the name of mandarin duck’. The French naturalist George-Louis Leclerc, Compte de Buffon (1707–88), included an illustration of a Mandarin drake in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (one of the tomes of his monumental multi-volume Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particuliere (1749–1804), and John Latham (1740– 1837) in his A General History of Birds (1824: Vol. X, 363) first described the female Mandarin as ‘not unlike that of the Summer Duck’ (Wood Duck). According to Latham (1824: Vol X, 364) Mandarin in China were: frequently exposed for sale at Canton, in cages … They are not infrequently brought to England alive but require much care, being more tender than our species, nor can they breed in this country. Care should be taken that both sexes are of Chinese origin; for the female of the Summer American Duck [the Wood Duck A. sponsa] is so like that of China, as to be mistaken for it. As we now know, Latham was incorrect about the tenderness of the Mandarin which, given the harsh climate in much of its native range, is not surprisingly a hardy species, and about its inability to reproduce in Britain where, both in captivity and in the wild, it is a ready breeder. In 1830, ‘the Mandarin was also an inhabitant of the [Zoological Society of London’s] Gardens, and first bred with us in 1834’ (Sclater 1880). The two pairs in Regent’s Park were purchased at an auction of the Earl of Derby’s wildfowl collection for the huge sum of £70. Here John Gould (1804–81) drew a drake from life for his Birds of Asia (1850–80)6. The earliest known reference to a Mandarin Duck in the wild in Britain was one shot at Cookham on the River Thames in Berkshire in 1866. In the early 20th century, the 11th Duke of Bedford acquired some Mandarin for his waterfowl collection at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, where by the outbreak of the First World War they numbered over 300, and local farmers were beginning to complain that the birds were causing damage in fields of stooked grain. During the two world wars, because of the difficulty of supplying the birds with supplementary food in winter, and due to the shortage of gamekeepers to control predators, the population of Mandarin declined to around 150, at which it remained stable. The success of the Mandarin at Woburn was due largely (as in the case of later populations in Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and elsewhere) to the ideal habitat. The numerous ancient oaks (Quercus spp.)and other trees at Woburn, Windsor and in the Forest of Dean provide an abundance of nesting-sites and autumn and winter feed, for which Mandarin compete with Jackdaws Corvus monedula, Grey Squirrels Sciurus carolinensis and other species. The many lakes, ponds and streams at Woburn, Windsor and the Forest of Dean encircled by Common Rhododendron Rhododendron ponticum and other marginal shrubs, reeds, sedges and riverine vegetation provide the birds with the shelter and cover that are a prime requirement, while the surrounding forest supplies a wealth of acorns, sweet-chestnuts and beech-mast that comprise the birds’ staple autumn and winter diet. Because of their high wing area/weight ratio (which is one of the highest among ducks) and their relatively long wings and tail, Mandarin have great manoeuvrability, and like the Northern Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, are adept at weaving through even densely planted woodlands, and like Eurasian Teal Anas crecca are able

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to rise almost vertically from confined spaces on land or water, and to plunge with half-closed wings to within a few feet of the surface before checking their descent. Mandarin are strong – though not particularly swift – flyers, seldom ascending much higher than tree-top level, and perhaps because of their highly specialised habitat requirements, Mandarin seldom mix with other species. Predators at both Woburn and Windsor have been strictly controlled, so for many years there was no incentive for the birds to leave these estates. In 1906 the Wormald & McLean Game Farm in East Anglia began to import, among other species, Mandarin Ducks, which were acquired from various dealers, mostly in Canton (now Guangzhou). As, however, the Mandarin bred only rarely, after the First World War the farm obtained some wild-trapped Mandarin from near Canton. Thereafter the Mandarin bred successfully, tending to confirm the allegation that to protect their lucrative trade the dealers had caponised the drakes before selling them. In the years immediately preceding the First World War, Sir Richard Graham, Bt, of Netherby in Cumberland (now Cumbria) on the Border Esk, acquired some Mandarin from the Wormald & McLean Game Farm – to which, as mentioned above, they had been imported directly from Canton – where the birds were reared in captivity. Subsequently, ‘pairs bred for some years in a wild state along the River Esk’ (Blezard & Johnston 1943: 19), but by the late 1920s this population had died out. In 1918 Viscount Grey of Fallodon added some Mandarin Ducks from the Wormald & McLean farm to his waterfowl sanctuary in Northumberland (Grey 1926, 1927) where Gordon (1937: 5–6) has left a delightful reminiscence of Grey’s affinity with wildlife: I had long wished to see, and photograph, a mandarin drake fly up and alight on Edward Grey’s head … after we had waited a little time a mandarin drake swam leisurely into our view, climbed on to the bank, and, after looking intently at Lord Grey for a time, and evidently thinking out the distance from the water’s edge to the figure on the seat, flew into the sunlit air and made a beautiful landing on Lord Grey’s head. Standing on this remarkable perch the mandarin actually began to display, and a little later a mandarin duck alighted on the seat. In quick succession two more mandarin drakes flew up and alighted on the back of the white seat – one on either side of Edward Grey … The picture was remarkable and beautiful. The spring sun shone full on the rich plumage of the three mandarin drakes as they stood motionless as though on guard, one on the statesman’s head [Grey was at the time Home Secretary] and one on either side of him. They were without fear or uneasiness, and one of the drakes actually closed his eyes and dozed for a brief space … to Lord Grey there was nothing unusual in this, for the birds were his constant friends and companions, and to the last days of his life gave him deep pleasure. While confirming Gordon’s observation, Grey (1927: 227) added the caveat that ‘tame as the Fallodon waterfowl have become – some of them will fly up and stand on the seat beside me to feed – the wild instinct is always there. Any unusual movement upsets them …’. Although the Mandarin at Fallodon initially flourished and spread outside the estate, they disappeared after Lord Grey’s death in 1933. Between 1910 and 1935, Lt-Col E.G.B. Meade-Waldo kept a flock of free-flying Mandarin Ducks at Stonewall Park near Edenbridge in Kent, where between 1874 and 1900 he also introduced and successfully released Little Owls Athene noctua; unlike the owls, the Mandarin failed to become established, probably due to the unsuitability of the habitat. In 1928 or 1929, the ornithologist Jean Delacour (1890–1985) found a large consignment of Mandarin Ducks in the bird market in Paris, to which they had been shipped from Hong Kong.

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These birds, many of which were already dead or dying, were contained in bamboo baskets, which Delacour identified as having been made in Fujian or Guangdong, suggesting the birds’ origin in China. Delacour purchased the entire consignment of nearly 50 birds, and in 1931 or 1932 gave between four and six pairs of the healthiest survivors to his friend, Alfred Ezra, who maintained a collection of exotic waterfowl at Foxwarren Park near Cobham in Surrey. (There seems to be come confusion about the date and source of Ezra’s Mandarin; Savage (1952) says that Ezra acquired six pairs in 1928 from the Wormald & McLean Game Farm; whether this is incorrect or whether Ezra received two consignments – one from Wormald & McLean in 1928 and one from Delacour in 1931 or 1932 is uncertain). Ezra’s birds were wing-clipped (not pinioned) and soon bred, they and their offspring subsequently spreading to the River Bourne which runs into nearby Virginia Water (an artificial lake of around 53ha in Windsor Great Park, designed by the architect Thomas Sandby, deputy-ranger of the park, for William, Duke of Cumberland in about 1750 and completed by his elder brother, George III, in 1789)7, where they were first seen by D. Goodwin (pers. comm.) in the winter of 1929 or 1930 or more probably a few years later. From Virginia Water Mandarin subsequently spread to other ponds and lakes in Windsor Great Park on the Surrey/Berkshire border; here, as at Woburn, they found an ideal habitat and flourished. Although it has been generally accepted that the Mandarin in Windsor Great Park in Berkshire are descended from those given to Alfred Ezra by Jean Delacour, A.K. Davies (pers. comm.) disputes this claim. Although accepting that Ezra’s birds were the genesis of the Surrey population, he cites as evidence that they were not the origin of the Windsor Great Park Mandarin the following points: (a) none of the birds ringed by Davies in his Surrey study area were ever seen in Berkshire, and none of the birds ringed in Berkshire turned up in his part of Surrey; the birds ringed by Davies in Berkshire were mostly seen subsequently elsewhere in Berkshire or in Buckinghamshire; (b) in his study areas in both counties female Mandarin proved to be very loyal to their breeding area, repeatedly returning to the same locality (sometimes to the same nest-site) for many years – as indeed they frequently do elsewhere; (c) DNA samples taken by G.K. Baggott (with whom Davies worked) showed that the females in a given breeding area were all so closely related to each other that they could not be differentiated one from another by their female strands of DNA alone; (d) the spread of Mandarin across Surrey – a comparatively small county – has been relatively slow. Davies believes that the main stock of Mandarin in Berkshire came from the release of the 44 pairs released in lakes and ponds in London in 1930 (see below). On the other hand, the distance as the Mandarin flies from Ezra’s collection at Cobham to Windsor Great Park is only around 17–18km, whereas the distance from central London is about double that figure: the jury must still be out on this intriguing conundrum. In 1930 the brothers Basil and Jack D’Eath introduced Mandarin to their wildfowl collection at Monken Hadley in Hertfordshire; about 30 years later some were allowed to fly free, and their progeny became established locally, where the population was regularly augmented by further annual releases. In 1930 ‘about forty pairs [of Mandarin] have now been handed over to the care of H.M. Office of Works, thanks to the generosity of Mr Alfred Ezra and Mr Spedan Lewis. These are only wing-clipped, and so will regain their powers of flight at the next moult. They are being placed in St James’s Park, Hyde Park, Greenwich Park, Regent’s Park, Hampton Court, and Buckingham Palace Gardens, while six additional pairs have gone to Foxwarren Park [Alfred Ezra] and four pairs to the Zoological Gardens’ (Anon 1930). In 1935 the brothers Ronald and Noel Stevens added some full-winged Mandarin to their collection of wildfowl at Walcot Hall in Shropshire, where the ducks failed to breed until the numerous Jackdaws Corvus monedula, which competed with the Mandarin for nesting-sites, had

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been eliminated. Thereafter, the Mandarin thrived in the ideal habitat at Walcot, where their number peaked at around 100, at which it remained until the outbreak of the Second World War, when the hall was requisitioned by the military until 1948. During the occupation the collection of wildfowl dispersed, and Mandarin seen in parts of North Wales at this time and in 1944 in Lancashire are presumed to have come from Walcot. After the war, some of the Mandarin returned, and up to 40 were counted in a single flock. Between 1935 and 1938 Mandarin Ducks, the origin of which were unknown, bred on a small ornamental pond at Seal, near Sevenoaks in Kent, but are believed to have been eradicated by Brown or Common Rats Rattus norvegicus. Section 14 (1) of Part 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 provides that: … if any person releases or allows to escape into the wild any animal which – (a) is of a kind which is not ordinarily resident in and is not a regular visitor to Great Britain in a wild state; or (b) is included in Part 1 of Schedule 9 he shall be guilty of an offence. As the Mandarin Duck is included on the Schedule named above it has, since 1981, been illegal deliberately to release or negligently to permit the species to escape into the wild in Britain. During the course of my research I have been surprised at the number of correspondents who, while generously imparting the information I requested, freely told me of the Mandarin they had illegally released into the wild. Unfortunately, Section 14 (3) of the Act furnishes an escape clause for such individuals by stating that: … it shall be a defence to a charge of committing an offence under subsection (1) or (2) [dealing with alien plants] to prove that the accused took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence. Thus negligent or unscrupulous persons have a ready-made defence to the accusation of perpetrating an offence under the Act, which doubtless accounts for the ‘accidental’ release and escape of Mandarin Ducks (and other exotic species) that continues to this day, and which the police, the RSPB and other statutory bodies have neither the time nor the resources to pursue.

Notes 1. In fact seven subspecies of Cyanopica cyanus occur in the Far East, of which six are found in China and Japan. (See also Goodwin 1986.) 2. Querquedula (Latin) = Teal. 3. Sarcelle (French) = Teal. 4. Siam = Thailand. 5. Since the first Mandarin Duck was introduced to England before 1745, it seems not unreasonable to suppose that Charles Darwin may have seen the species on the estate of

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one or more of his landowning friends; it is thus tempting to speculate that the Mandarin was among those species of which he was thinking when, in the final paragraph of On the Origin of Species (1859), he wrote of ‘forms most beautiful and wonderful’ in the natural world. 6. Source: Dictionary of National Biography (Wikipedia incorrectly gives the dates as 1850– 1883). 7. Source: Crown Estate (Wikipedia incorrectly gives the starting date as 1746 and the date of completion as 1780).

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Chapter 5

Spread, distribution and status within Britain and Northern Ireland England It is surprising, in view of the low propagule pressure involved, how successful the Mandarin Duck was in becoming established in England, and how successful it has become in spreading throughout England, Scotland, Wales and, to a lesser extent, Northern Ireland. A number of factors influence the success or failure of an introduced species in becoming naturalised in an alien environment, including: (a) A suitable climate and habitat. (b) The existence of a vacant ecological niche. (c) An adequate supply of acceptable food. (d) An absence of predators to which the introduced species may be unaccustomed in its native range. (e) Fecundity. (f) The loss of native parasites (perhaps due to the absence of an intermediary host). (g) A sufficiently large founder stock (high propagule pressure). (h) In the case of birds, the absence of or abandonment of the instinct to migrate.1 In the case of the Mandarin Duck all these requirements are fulfilled apart from factor (f) (which is as yet unproven) and (g), the species having become established despite the low propagule

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pressure involved, both in terms of numbers released and loci, resulting in a very small initial population. Small populations tend to suffer from a loss of genetic variety and will probably contain fewer alleles than the native population from which they were derived, while genetic drift within introduced populations will result in the loss of further alleles. Degrees of inbreeding in small populations may be high, which in turn can result in loss of heterozygosity and thus inbreeding depression. This can reduce the fitness of the introduced population and raise the likelihood of its extinction. Low propagule pressure is usually defined as the release of 200 years old Beech Fagus sylvatica. Nests were found mainly in Beech (nine), Ash Fraxinus excelsior/ornus (one), Alder Alnus glutinosa/incana (one) and lime Tilia sp. (one). All nests in Beech trees were in holes made by Black Woodpeckers Dryocopus martius. The mean height of nest-cavities was 12.6m. Near the study area, two further Mandarin nests were found in Tawny Owl Strix aluco boxes and possibly in a factory chimney. The mean date of the commencement of laying was 20 April. Four completed clutches contained 10, 10, 11 and 12 eggs. Four out of 14 nests failed (21%) – three through desertion by the incubating female and one due to predation (probably by a Beech Marten Martes foina or Pine Marten M. martes). Loss of ducklings was linked to possible aggression by Common Coots Fulica atra, and adult Mandarin were prone to predation by Northern Goshawks Accipter gentilis (Bijlsma 1994). The 1998–2000 Atlas (Lensink 2002) reported Mandarin as a probable or confirmed breeding species in well over 8% of the grid squares. In a few dozen squares with possible breeding Mandarin, the birds may have been roaming individuals or pairs undetected due to their secretive habits. From Veluwe, Mandarin spread to the nearby region of IJsseldal, where they breed in ancient forests near drainage streams and on estates containing ponds. In the southern part of the Veluwe National Park, there is a second core population that is believed to be derived from birds in the north-eastern part of the park rather than from those in the Sonsbeek Park in Arnhem (Bijlsma et al. 2001). More or less centred around this core, Mandarin breed in pollarded willows Salix spp. in the Betuwe region (Bijlsma et al. 2001). A third core population occurs in central Limburg, on both banks of the Maas River between Swalmen and Venlo-Blerick. This population, which

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is established in forests and parks near streams flowing into the Maas River, was discovered in the late 1980s (Schaafstra & Boonstra 1999). In addition to these main populations, small subpopulations occur in many other localities, e.g. around Haarlem, in western Noord-Brabant, Schoorl, and near Brunssum and Kerkrade in southern Limburg. Their presence in the stream valleys of Twente, the Achterhoek area and central Noord-Brabant is fragmented. Mandarin are rare or absent in the Delta area, in Flevoland and on the Wadden Islands. The first two Mandarin in the Achterhoek area were reported in 1992. After the first records in the 1960s/1970s the total number of breeding pairs in the Netherlands rose to around 10 in 1983, 30 in 1989 and 110 in 1994; the estimated number of pairs for the 1998–2000 Atlas was between 200 and 260, the majority of which occurred in the north-eastern part of the Veluwe National Park (30 to 40 pairs), the southern part of that park and adjacent areas of Betuwe and Utrechtse Heuvelrug (50 to 70) and in central Limburg (25 to 30) (SOVON 2002). The other core populations were located around Haarlem (10 to 15), Twente, Achterhoek and southern Limburg (c. 5 to10 in each), and central and western NoordBrabant (10 to 15 and 20 to 25 respectively). The annual population increase between 1983 and 2000 amounted to 9% (Lensink 2002). An estimate in 2006 and 2007 of breeding pairs of Mandarin in the Netherlands of seven and 13 pairs respectively (compared with the estimated numbers of 80 to 95 pairs in 2000–02) was almost certainly due to unsatisfactory counting. Mandarin appeared to have increased a little in Limburg (seven pairs in 2007 and an average of three to five pairs in earlier years), but elsewhere there are no signs of any increase, and the species may even be declining in numbers (Vermeersch and Anselin 2009). Possible competition in the Netherlands between Mandarin Ducks and Goldeneye Bucephala clangula for nesting-holes may be a contributory factor in the failure to spread of the latter species (Voskamp and Driessen 2003).

Norway According to Snow and Perrins (1998) Mandarin Ducks bred in Norway in 1970–71 and in 1992. Nankinov (2006) says that Mandarin have been breeding in Norway since 1970, but provides no further details.

Poland The earliest record for Mandarin Ducks (Mandarynka) in the wild in Poland was in 1963–64 (Sikora et al. 2007). Since at least 2001, breeding has taken place in the Laziencki Park in Warsaw (Tomialoj´c & Stawarczyk 2003; Langley 2004), where in 2002 three females succeeded in rearing young. These birds were probably the descendants of three pairs deliberately released in the park in 1999. By February 2003, the population in the park had increased to between 25 and 30 pairs. After 2002, the birds spread to other parts of Warsaw, and in May 2003 pairs were reported at Stargarden Szczeri´nskim and in 2004 at Pokrzywnéj in the Opole Region (Zieli´nski 2007). A female spent the winter of 2005–06 on the River Paklica – the first record of the species in Mie˛dzyrzecz (Chmielewski 2006). Since the 1980s, Mandarin have been observed in several of the larger Polish cities, such

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as Gda´nsk, Szczecin, Posna´n, Zelona Góra, Opole, Wroclaw and Katowice (Sikora et al. 2007). Although records continue to increase, there have been no indications of any further expansion of range in Poland, and in Warsaw and elsewhere the population remains low (Mazgajski & Mazgajska 2004). Thus any increase in the distribution and numbers of Mandarin in Poland is likely to be, at best, slow (Zieli´nski 2007). On 21 June and 3 July 2008, a female Mandarin with eight or nine ducklings was seen on the Nowy Row River near Szczepanów, in the Sroda Slaska district of Lower Silesia. This was claimed by Kakol and Stajszczyk (2008) to be the first breeding record of the species in the wild in Poland. (This claim, however, may result from a mistranslation from the original Polish, and should probably read the first breeding away from Warsaw.) Although records of Mandarin in Poland are increasing, most have come from Silesia. There are to date only two records from eastern Poland.

Slovakia In 2007, the Rarities Committee of the Slovak Ornithological Society/Birdlife Slovakia accepted two records of Mandarin Ducks into Category A (a new species for Slovakia). In the following year, the species was upgraded to Category C (confirmed nesting) (Srank 2008, 2009).

South Africa Banks et al. (2008) say that Mandarin have been recorded as occasionally breeding in the wild in South Africa, where escapes have been reported since at least 1983.

Spain Banks et al. (2008) say that the Mandarin (Pato Mandarin) has bred successfully in Spain, where it is a Category E species. (‘Species that have been recorded as introductions, humanassisted transportees or escapes from captivity, and whose breeding populations (if any) are thought not to be self-sustaining’) (See Dudley 2005; Dudley et al. 2006).

Switzerland The first two occurrences in the wild of Mandarin Ducks in Switzerland were at Basel in 1958 (originating in escapes from a zoo) (Kestenholz 1997; Snow & Perrins 1998), where a single pair bred successfully in 1960 and 1961 (Riggenbach 1963; Nankinov (2006) incorrectly says in 1958). Away from this region, breeding began on the River Aar near Soleure in 1974 (where the largest concentration is still found) (Kestenholz 1997), and since 1981 has occurred on Lake Neuchâtel and on the River Sihil south-west of Zürich. The Genevois region was not occupied until 1993–94 (Schmidt 1994; Barbalat & Volet 1995) and the valley of the Rhine not until 1996.

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From the 1970s, Mandarin began to expand their range in Switzerland, where, as elsewhere, the species’ distribution seems largely to be determined by the availability of suitable habitat and food. It was not until 1980, however, that Mandarin began to breed regularly in Switzerland. The number of successfully breeding pairs rose from two or three in 1980–87 to four in 1988–95 and eight in 1996–2003, the highest number being in 2002 (Maumary 2007). Snow and Perrins (1998) say that between 1985 and 1993 the number of breeding pairs was between 10 and 20. By the 1990s, Mandarin Ducks occurred in several parts of north-western Switzerland, on the central Mittelland plateau below 500m asl and locally near Geneva in the Alps, with a total population of some 200 individuals (Kestenholz 1997), and between 10 and 15 breeding pairs. Today the principal breeding areas are Basel; on the Aare near Biel in Valais; at Soleure and Olten south-east of Basel, and on the Rhône below Geneva. Breeding has also taken place on the lakes of Neuchâtel, Zürich and Sempach north-west of Luzern, on the River Sihl, and also at Bad Ragaz south-east of Zurich in 1996; the highest altitude for a nest was at Arosa (1,730m) near Davos, where breeding has occurred annually since 1992 (Winkler 1999; Maumary 2007). In the Haute-Engadine region, Mandarin are observed regularly in the autumn. In 1999– 2000, two pairs wintered for the first time on the lake at St Moritz at around 1,770m. Away from their breeding sites, Mandarin have also occurred in Jura, at Valais and at Tessin. As elsewhere, for breeding in Switzerland Mandarin require lentic or slowly flowing lotic water with dense marginal cover. An abundance of massive old trees providing plenty of nesting sites is also essential. These requirements are found principally in parks, forest ponds and woodland near lakes and rivers (Kestenholz 1997). As throughout their range, Mandarin Ducks in Switzerland are extremely shy and secretive, sheltering under branches and bushes overhanging the water. In winter, the main numbers are usually found where the birds have bred. Mandarin eat mainly seeds, plants and small aquatic vertebrates and invertebrates dabbled from shallow water or skimmed from the surface. Mandarin in Switzerland can occur singly, in pairs or in small groups of more than eight individuals – at Soleure (their principal location) sometimes more than 40 are seen together (Blair et al. 2000; Lever 2005). There are under 10 breeding records a year in Switzerland, but a total of 221 individuals was recorded at winter counts in November 2005 (Rehfisch et al. 2006; Banks et al. 2008). Swiss Mandarin nest mainly in natural tree-cavities or in the old nests of Barn Owls Tyto alba up to 18m agl; nests are occasionally found on the ground – usually at the base of a large tree or among the roots and branches of a fallen tree – and even in barns. In Switzerland, seven to 13 eggs are laid between mid-April and late June, and are incubated by the female for between 28 and 31 days. The ducklings remain with their parents for 40–45 days. The earliest Swiss clutch was found on 9 April 2002 above d’Ernetschwil; on 7 May 2000 adults accompanied by six ducklings were seen at Bad Ragaz (Maumary 2007). The Swiss population of Mandarin seems likely slowly to increase, despite high young mortality, limited nesting-sites and hard winters. According to Kestenholz et al. (2005), apart from the Mandarin Duck the only other alien bird naturalised in Switzerland is the Common Pheasant Phasianus colchicus (see Lever 1987).

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Table 15. Estimated number of Mandarin Duck pairs breeding annually in the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement Area outside Britain and Ireland between 1996 and 2007. Country

1996–2002 2004–2007

Austria

10-20 40-60

Belgium

> 15

> 100

France 10 18 Country

1996–2002 2004–2007

Germany 100–200 c. 350 Monaco Unknown 2 The Netherlands

200–260

> 200–260

Norway Unknown Unknown Poland Unknown

< 20

South Africa Rare Unknown Slovakia Unknown Unknown Spain Unknown Rare Switzerland

10–15

< 10

Source: Banks et al. 2008.

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Chapter 7

Mandarin Ducks in the United States In 1968, Lawton L. Shurtleff acquired the >800ha Indian Meadow Ranch at Vineberg and Walnut Creek, near Healdsburg in Sonoma County, Calistoga, north of San Francisco, California. There, in 1972, a free-flying colony of Mandarin Ducks became established on 3ha of impoundments on a small tributary of the Russian River. The first birds arrived at Indian Meadow almost certainly from the property of a neighbour at Sonoma Creek, over 30km away, which had been colonised by free-flying birds that had escaped from a collection nearby (Shurtleff in Shurtleff & Savage 1996; see also Berner et al. 2003). This area, which Mandarin share with the only other member of their genus, the Wood Duck Aix sponsa, with which they are thus congeneric, consists of rough, rolling hills, heavily wooded with oaks Quercus spp., Madrone Arbutus menziesii, alders Alnus spp., willows Salix spp., redwoods Sequoia spp. and other trees. It lies, significantly, at much the same latitude as part of the Mandarin’s native range in the Far East. The gradual disappearance of oak trees on the American West Coast has been a major threat to the survival of the Wood Duck in this area. Competition for winter feeding is keen between Wood Ducks and Band-tailed Pigeons Columba fasciata, Wild Turkeys Meleagris gallopavo, introduced Wild Boar Sus scrofa (see Lever 1985) and various small rodents. At the same time, Douglas Fir Pseudotsuga menziesii is moving slowly down the hillsides to colonise the lower ground formerly occupied by oaks; if the firs eventually replace the oaks, native Wood Duck

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and introduced Mandarin will be forced to transfer to more marginal wetlands and deciduous woodland to meet their nesting and foraging requirements. To supply the Wood Duck with suitable breeding sites on Indian Meadow Ranch, a number of nest-boxes were installed on trees, and soon attracted the birds’ attention. Since neither Wood Ducks nor Mandarin make use of any nesting material, all nest-boxes were lined to a depth of 10cm with wood shavings, which have to be replaced annually because bumblebees (Bombidae) commandeer as their hives any boxes containing the previous year’s litter. Pine shavings seem to be preferred to fir shavings. It is interesting that Mandarin on Indian Meadow Ranch appear to prefer nest-boxes rather than natural cavities for breeding. This was put to the test on ponds where Mandarin, but not Wood Duck, had nested in boxes for several years; one winter all the nest-boxes were removed and replaced by dead trees with natural cavities; in every succeeding year Wood Ducks nested in these cavities whereas the Mandarin never returned, even though some cavities were unoccupied and available. This phenomenon is believed by Shurtleff (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) to be a consequence of Mandarin in California being the descendants of many generations of birds raised in captivity, and thus long removed from a natural breeding habitat, while Wood Duck are all of vigorous wild native stock. (This is a reversal of the position in Britain, where Mandarin are all descended from vigorous wild-caught Chinese birds whereas Wood Duck are derived from birds that have for generations been bred in captivity). By mid-February, the first Wood Duck females are actively seeking nest-sites. At this time of year, in 1972 (Nankinov (2006) incorrectly says 1977) the first Mandarin was seen at a nestbox on Indian Meadow Ranch, and the box was later found to contain three eggs. Why of all the ranches in the area Mandarin selected Indian Meadow is uncertain, but as Shurtleff points out it may be because of the provision of nest-boxes (which are as suitable for Mandarin as for Wood Ducks), a programme of artificial feeding, and the construction of a series of wooded and secluded ponds protected from encroachment by grazing cattle. Because this area is the only one in the world where Wood Duck and Mandarin live sympatrically, and since they are so closely related, it is not surprising that, in the early years, mixed broods (not hybrids) of ducklings, were sometimes observed, invariably led by a female Mandarin. They are believed to have resulted from a female Mandarin laying her eggs on top of, and then incubating, those in a Wood Duck nest. However, as more and more nest-boxes suitable for both species were provided, such mixed broods have become much more rare. As elsewhere, no successful hybridisation between Mandarin and Wood Duck has ever been recorded at Indian Meadow Ranch. Wood Ducks have hybridised with several other species, including Mallard Anas platyrhynchos and teal Anas spp., but because of a distinctive chromosome formula (Yamashina 1949; Austin & Kuroda 1953) Mandarin do not produce viable hybrids (see Chapter 9 and Appendix I). Interspecific mating between, invariably, male Mandarin and female Wood Duck has been observed at Indian Meadow, but in only two instances have eggs certainly resulted; both females incubated for well over 30 days before abandoning the clutch, when the eggs were all found to be infertile. Although in many ways so similar, Mandarin and Wood Duck at Indian Meadow show interesting differences; the former, for example, tend more frequently to breed near and assemble on shallow upland streams that flow fairly rapidly over rocks and gravel to the lakes below – areas that are not dissimilar to those in many parts of the species’ native range in the Far East. Perhaps, as Shurtleff (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) suggests, Mandarin in northern California have found a vacant ecological niche between the more turbulent waters favoured by the native Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus pacificus and the more placid waters preferred by the Wood Duck.

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A critical factor in the relationship between Mandarin and Wood Duck in California is that the former, perhaps in response to conditions prevailing in their more northerly and colder native range, nest three to four weeks later than the latter. This puts the Mandarin at a distinct disadvantage, since the Wood Ducks have the opportunity of selecting the optimum nestingsites, particularly in terms of providing food and shelter for the ducklings. Many later Mandarin broods are thus forced to make a lengthy and arduous cross-country journey down several kilometres of dry stream beds towards the Russian River in search of more favourable habitat. Some of these Mandarin families inevitably fail to survive this long trip, and in the following spring the nest they had used in the previous year stands abandoned. Since both Mandarin and Wood Duck females almost always return to their natal nesting-site, an empty nest usually implies the death of the female and presumably her entire brood. Predation is another critical factor affecting the survival of Mandarin (and Wood Duck) adults and young on Indian Meadow Ranch. Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides – introduced (see Lever 1996a) as a sporting asset but now removed – formerly took a heavy toll of ducklings, as do American Bullfrogs Rana catesbeiana (see Lever 2003). Adult females (when on their nests), their eggs and the neonates fall prey to arboreal Racoons Procyon lotor, Bobcats Felis rufus, Virginian Opossums Didelphis virginiana, Ring-tailed Cats or Cacomistles Bassariscus astutus, and occasionally American Mink Neovison vison. After hatching, ducklings on the ground and their parents are preyed on by Red Foxes Vulpes vulpes (introduced to the lowlands of California in the 19th century, see Lever (1985)) and Common Skunks Mephitis mephitis. Avian predators include Cooper’s Hawks Accipiter cooperi, Sharp-shinned Hawks A. striatus, Red-shouldered Hawks Buteo lineatus, Great Horned Owls Bubo virginianus and even Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos. Outside the breeding season, Mandarin and Wood Duck associate freely at Indian Meadow, although within the population of each species there is intense competition to protect a mate or fledglings. The methods employed by the females to do this vary markedly between the species – Wood Ducks tend to charge aggressively at intruders with lowered head and open bill, whereas the Mandarin female’s approach is more subtle, bobbing and weaving with closed bill as she attempts to drive the interloper away. In spring, a Mandarin drake can often be seen perched on top of his nest-box, peering down into the entrance hole just as the eggs are about to hatch. Then, unlike the Wood Duck male, which invariably abandons his mate before the eggs hatch and is subsequently seen only rarely with her and the ducklings, the male Mandarin remains with his mate and her brood for the first week or fortnight after they leave the nest. Also, whereas the female Mandarin tends to remain on her eggs when a predator appears, a Wood Duck female usually leaves her nest at the slightest hint of danger. When a Mandarin female with ducklings is surprised on the water by a potential threat, she sinks lower on the surface with depressed head and crest, while leading her brood to safety; the startled female Wood Duck, on the other hand, raises herself higher in the water and erects her crest, uttering a series of piercing alarm calls all the while. Although day-old Mandarin ducklings are larger and heavier than those of Wood Duck, by the time of fledging the young of both species are similar in size, and the recently acquired weight of Wood Duck young may be a contributory reason why they are ready for flight nearly a fortnight later than the young of Mandarin. The courtship behaviour and voice of the two species, despite their close relationship, vary considerably. The sounds uttered by the drake Wood Duck are barely audible, while those of the male Mandarin are a clearly heard high-pitched staccato bark and a soft and scarcely audible sibilant whistle, or, more rarely, a grunting sound produced by two Mandarin drakes together with drawn back heads and puffed out breasts. ‘This’, as Shurtleff (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996:

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Map 4. Present distribution of Mandarin Ducks in the United States. 48) points out, ‘is not the “grunt whistle” commonly noted in the Mandarin literature, but is a true grunt that normally would be associated in northern California only with a wild pig’; could it perhaps be unique to this Californian population? The voices of the females are more similar than are those of the males, although the sharp alarm call of the Wood Duck is more audible than the softer warning call of the Mandarin. The female Wood Duck also has a haunting call lacked by the Mandarin. The plumage of the females of both species is remarkably similar; however, whereas the Mandarin’s eye is encircled by a fine white line that tapers to the back of the head, the Wood Duck’s eye is encircled by a larger white ‘teardrop’. In courtship, the role of both females is very similar; each flattens herself on the surface of the water to solicit her chosen mate, while they circle each other. The display of the Mandarin is more uninhibited than that of the Wood Duck, and the apparently more pugnacious male Mandarin indulge more frequently than Wood Duck in a form of ritualistic fighting, attacking each other with their wings and feet. As in the European zone of their naturalised range, Mandarin in North America have seemingly abandoned their migratory instinct. While making it more likely that they will become established where they have been introduced, this also of course inhibits their dispersal and extension of range. With the onset of autumn, the first migratory Wood Duck arrive from the north at Indian Meadow Ranch. At this time, the native species considerably outnumbers the Mandarin, but as autumn turns into winter most of the migrating Wood Duck move on, leaving the Mandarin behind. The first major winter storms cause many departed Wood Ducks to return, and once more Wood Ducks and Mandarin occur together on the lakes and ponds of Indian Meadow Ranch. In a cautious assessment of the situation, because the Mandarin – and, of course, Wood Duck – at Indian Meadow are subject to supplementary feeding, the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) (1998: 690) says:

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an introduced population of this Eurasian species may be established as a breeding species in Sonoma County, California. The first nest was recorded in 1972, and by the mid-1980s, the population had grown to several hundred [actually c. 550] (Shurtleff & Savage 1996). While it is true that supplementary feeding must play a role in the survival of Mandarin (and possibly Wood Duck) in Sonoma County, only the cessation of this practice would establish whether it is vital to the two species’ survival. By 1987, the population of Mandarin in Sonoma County was estimated to number around 550 birds (Small 1994; Shurtleff & Savage 1996; Andreotti et al. 2001). In 2010, the prebreeding figure was judged to be between 100 and 200 pairs. Each year eggs are removed from some wild nests and the young reared in captivity before ringing and subsequent release on fledging; this ensures that they are protected from predators at a time when they are most vulnerable. In recent years, Mandarin Ducks, presumably vagrants from California, have been recorded from Oregon in the north and from the 8,900km2 Yellowstone National Park (on the borders of north-western Wyoming, south-western Montana and north-eastern Idaho) in the north-east, which has plenty of apparently suitable habitat, prompting the possibility of the formation of a new population. Unfortunately, a prejudice against Mandarins has arisen among some people in the western United States. This is based firstly on the belief that Mandarin and native Wood Duck compete for nesting-sites, and secondly the fear that alien Mandarin hybridise with native Wood Duck, thus diluting the latter’s genes. While some interspecific competition for places to nest does probably exist (usually to the native species’ advantage), the provision of artificial nest-boxes at Indian Meadow Ranch and elsewhere should ensure sufficient nesting-sites for both species. Although the Wood Duck has successfully hybridised with several other duck species (e.g. Mallard Anas platyrhynchos), the mating of Mandarin with other species, including the Wood Duck, has never resulted in the production of viable offspring. The Wikipedia website (2011)1 states that ‘Black Mountain, North Carolina also has a limited population’ of Mandarin Ducks. This population, which numbers around half a dozen breeding pairs, occurs on the approximately one hectare man-made Lake Tomahawk, which lies within the Black Mountain city limits some 30km east of Asheville (L. Hill and I. Phillips pers. comms.). The date of arrival of Mandarin on Lake Tomahawk does not seem to have been recorded, but the population is not mentioned by the AOU (1998). The origin of the Mandarin is similarly unknown, but the presence on the lake of other exotic duck species suggests a release or escape from a neighbouring avicultural collection. The nearest such collection to Lake Tomahawk is the Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Park, and it may be significant that my enquiries to the park failed to elicit a response.

Note: 1. See also: BBC-Wildlife Finder (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Mandarin_Duck).

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Non-breeding records in the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement area and failed introductions elsewhere Non-breeding Records Azores Free-flying Mandarin (Pato-Mandarim) may from time to time occur in this Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic, although survival and, in particular, successful breeding is likely due to a less than optimum habitat (Blair et al. 2000; Lever 2005).

Balearic Islands Snow and Perrins (1998) report records of the Mandarin Duck in the Spanish Balearic Islands in the eastern Mediterranean.

Belarus According to Snow and Perrins (1998), Mandarin Duck have been recorded in Belarus in eastern Europe.

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Botswana Banks et al. (2008) report a single instance of Mandarin in the wild at Phakalane sewage ponds near Gabarone. This is well to the south of the species’ natural Far Eastern range, so successful breeding is unlikely.

Bulgaria Mandarin (Mandarinska Patitsa) that presumably dispersed from wild-living western European populations and/or escaped from zoological gardens in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere have been observed in winter at the lake of Durankulak in north-eastern Bulgaria, where a male and two females were first seen in December 1969 (Peshev 1971; Nankinov 2006).

Croatia Two individual Mandarin were observed on the Drava River in Osijek on 21 January 2003; these birds had undoubtedly escaped from captivity (Jurcevic 2005).

Czech Republic According to Banks et al. (2008), small numbers of Mandarin (Kachni˘cka Mandarinská) occur in the Czech Republic, where Snow and Perrins (1998) report records since the 19th century. Expanding on this, Jasso (2009) found that between 1978 and 2008 there had been a total of 168 observations of the species. Since 2000, these occurrences have been reported on a regular basis, with a marked increase since 2003. The highest number of individuals (79) was recorded during a winter count. In spring (2 February to 11 May), a total of 50 birds were counted and 35 in autumn (26 September to 19 December). Only four individuals have been seen during the breeding season (June to August), and successful breeding – though it may have taken place – has yet to be recorded.

Denmark Mandarin Ducks have from time to time been recorded in the wild in Denmark (e.g. Zielin´ski 2007), but no breeding is known to have occurred. Snow and Perrins (1998) and Nankinov (2006) claimed the presence of c. 10 pairs in the late 1980s.

Faroe Islands Cramp and Simmons (1977), Snow and Perrins (1998) and Nankinov (2006) say that Mandarin have been reported in the Danish Faroe Islands, where Pennington et al. (2004) say that only two birds have ever been recorded. Both recorded sightings have taken place since 1984, and both were in April and May.

Finland Mandarin (Mandariinisorsa) are said to have been recorded in Finland (Cramp & Simmons 1977; Snow & Perrins 1998; Nankinov 2006).

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Appendix 3

Hungary Kalotas (2002) reported a single (undoubtedly escaped) Mandarin Duck (Mandarinréce) on a pond, ’Reti II, in Hungary in January 2001.

Iceland There have been three records of Mandarin Ducks in Iceland, all since 1984 and in April and May (Pennington et al. 2004). They may have been the same individuals recorded during the same period on the Faroe Islands, some 500km to the south-east.

Israel Banks et al. (2008) record the presence, but not the breeding, of small numbers of Mandarin around Gush Dan.

Italy Although first recorded as long ago as the 1940s and since reported in 12 provinces, at the turn of the millennium the population of Mandarin (Anatra Mandarina) was only a minimum of 10 individuals (mostly in winter) (Blair et al. 2000; Lever 2005), and successful breeding has yet to be recorded. Baccetti et al. (1997) said that Mandarin were not then established in Italy, and the species is not mentioned by Bertolino (1999). Nevertheless, since then Rehfisch et al. (2006) and Banks et al. (2008) record the presence, but not breeding, of small numbers of Mandarin in Italy. (See also Andreotti et al. 2001; Alessandra et al. 2006).

Luxembourg Around a dozen Mandarin occur almost annually in Luxembourg and – as yet unconfirmed – breeding may have taken place (Blair et al. 2000; Lever 2005).

Morocco Snow and Perrins (1998) say that the Mandarin Duck has been recorded in the wild in Morocco, but give no further details.

Romania There are several records of Mandarin in Romania, where breeding by this poorly recorded species is so far unconfirmed (Blair et al. 2000; Lever 2005).

Russia M. V. Kalyakin (pers. comm. to M. Wilson) reported the first record of a Mandarin Duck in Moscow, where on 11 December 2005 a single male was seen by O. O. Tolstenkov with a large number of Mallard Anas platyrhynchos on a small ice-free pond near the Dmitry Donskoy Avenue metro station in the south-east of the city (see database of the Birds of Moscow City and the Moscow Region). This bird, over 5,000km west of its nearest natural range in Russia, was presumably an escapee or had been released from captivity.

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Slovenia Ciglic and Sere (2004) reported the presence of Mandarin Ducks in the wild in Slovenia, probably as escapees from captivity. Bordjan (2004) recorded a single male (with 20 Mallards Anas platyrhynchos) on 3 and 4 September 2003 on Hotinja Vas fishponds south-east of Maribor in the north-east of the country; this record was accepted by the National Birds Records Committee.

Sweden In spite of over 23 records of Mandarin Ducks (Mandarinand) in Sweden since 1992 (almost annually according to Snow and Perrins 1998), successful breeding has so far not been reported (Blair et al. 2000; Lever 2005), perhaps at least in part due to the fact that even the latitude of southern Sweden is at the extremity of the species’ breeding range in the Far East.

Ukraine It is not known whether the small population of Mandarin Ducks established since the 1980s on the Ascania-Nova Reserve breeds successfully (Blair et al. 2000; Lever 1987, 2005), but in the absence of confirmation during the last 30 years or so it must be regarded as unlikely. Table 16. Countries in the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement Area in which Mandarin Ducks have occurred in the wild but are not known to have bred. Country

Date(s) etc.

Azores ? Balearic Islands

?

Belarus ? Botswana ? Bulgaria

First in December 1969

Croatia

First in January 2003

Czech Republic

1978–2008; regularly since 2000

Denmark

? 10 pairs in late 1980s

Faroe Islands

?

Finland ? Hungary One in 2001 Iceland

Three records since 1984

Israel Small numbers Italy Occurrences since 1940s Luxembourg Around a dozen annually Morocco ? Romania Several records Russia

First (Moscow) in December 2005

Slovenia

First in September 2003

Sweden

More than 23 records since 1992

Ukraine Since 1980s on Ascania-Nova Reserve

Source: Banks et al. 2008.

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Appendix 3

Failed Introductions Australia McCance (1962) refers to an unsuccessful attempt to establish Mandarin Ducks in Australia – well south of their natural range – but does not specify a locality.

New Zealand Thomson (1922: 103) recorded that: The Auckland [Acclimatisation] Society received one [Mandarin] in 1868; the Canterbury Society two in 1871, and a number in 1885 from the Royal Zoological Society of London; and the Otago Society four in 1907. Private dealers also frequently introduced this bird. The 1871 shipment arrived at Port Chalmers on board the Warrior Queen in the care of Richard Bills (Druett 1983), who in the following year returned from England with a pair of Mandarin for the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society (Lamb 1964). Whether any of those birds were released into the wild is unrecorded (Lever 1992).

Tahiti According to Guild (1938: 11), ‘Mr Nordhoff … has been liberating Wood [Aix sponsa] and Mandarin Duck’ in Tahiti. Writing some two years later, Guild (1940) (quoted by Blackburn et al. 2009) said: ‘For the past few years, it has been my hobby to import to Tahiti birds from different parts of the world and liberate them. Up to the present time I have received and liberated about 7,000 birds of fifty-nine different species’. The Mandarin, so far to the south of their native range (and most of the other species) never became established. (See also Thomson 1922.)

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Annual life cycle: courtship; breeding biology; moulting The autecological study of the Mandarin Duck in Britain best begins around late September/ early October when, a few weeks after most of the drakes have emerged from their sombre eclipse plumage into which they moulted during the summer and have resumed their full breeding finery, the birds start to assemble in autumnal flocks.

Courtship It is at about this time that communal courtship commences, and the adult drakes begin their elaborate and complex display routines. These take place largely in the early morning and evening, and involve several males and one or more females. These extraordinary rituals have been most eloquently described by the Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz, quoted by Delacour (1959: 107–108):

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The Mandarin drake takes less interest in the presence of the female at the performance of his display than any of the Anatidae [sic] that I know. Even more than with the Mallard, the social display is an affair of the males. They place themselves on show quite passively without being the least bit concerned about the presence of females, almost like Blackcocks [Lyrurus tetrix], Ruffs [Philomachus pugnax], and other birds lacking the true pair-formation. Correspondingly, in the social play of the Mandarin, those orientationreactions in which other drakes, even the Mallard, give attention to the ducks which are present, are lacking, namely the turning of the head and of the back of the head. Only in the mock-preening is the drake oriented towards the duck, but this behaviour occurs very seldom in the display. In the social play proper, the Mandarin drakes do not court one particular female, just as Peacocks [Pavo cristatus], Turkey gobblers [Meleagris gallopavo], Black Game, or Ruffs never do. It is also surely no coincidence that this very species, where the active role in choosing a mate falls so entirely to the female, is at the same time the one with the most highly differentiated, showy male plumage. The introductory shaking plays a very small role. Drinking and mock-preening have become an absolutely linked behaviour sequence, but in the reverse order in which we saw them in the Gadwall [Anas strepera]. After an exaggerated drinking there follows a mock-preening which is more formalized and marked by stronger morphological differentiation than is the case in any other duck. That is to say, the Mandarin drake touches from the inner side the large rust-red tertiaries which are held up like a sail during every outburst of display. The drake performs the drinking-and-mock-preening act very often when he is standing on the shore beside his duck. Then both mates drink at the same time, and thereupon the drake touches his beautiful plume, invariably the one on the side next to the duck. Burping is the most striking because of the great size of the lifted hood and beard feathers. The striking feather ball, which is held up so jerkily, looks actually heavy. Simultaneously the drake utters a nasal ‘efrrrpuib’, exactly at the moment of the maximum tension of the bone-drum. The extreme stretching and arching of the neck, together with the corresponding movements of the plumage, result in a most grotesque spectacle. It looks almost as if the bird must put his neck out of joint. The Mandarin drake has no real grunt-whistle but he displays not less than three different behaviour patterns which have come from mimic-exaggeration of shaking. The first reminds one of the male [Common Shelduck] T. tadorma’s display-shaking. The head is lowered and then thrust up very high, while a whirring sound is uttered. The hood is very much ruffled. The double grunt-whistle is a behaviour sequence peculiar to the Mandarin drake. It consists of two separate movements, both derived from a displacement shaking. After an ordinary introductory shaking, often even without it, the drake dips his bill into the water about 5cm from his breast, shaking and squirting, and then, continuing to shake, he thrusts it up again. This behaviour differs from an ordinary very hard shaking, such as we have seen in the females of Aix, only by the movement being so exaggerated that the bill is actually dipped into the water in a way recalling the grunt-whistle of the Anatinae [sic]. Besides this, in this movement the drake utters a sound which I have designated in my diary as ‘gnk-zit’, which expresses its similarity with a half-repressed sneeze fairly well. Immediately after this action and always linked to it, there now follows a second, which by its greater differentiation is still further separated from shaking. With a sharp bend of the head, the bill is lowered vertically so that it dips into the water right in front of the drake’s breast. The tendency to lower the head, which we have seen in

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the ordinary shaking of Aix, is here mimic-exaggerated much more than in the previous movement. With a very brief shaking, the very curved neck is now thrust upwards, with which a short sneezing whistle is heard. I suspect that as a matter of fact only one rightleft movement takes place, as in the true grunt-whistle of the Mallard [Anas platyrhyncos] and Pintail [Anas acuta] drakes. The body is not straightened up afterwards. One can say that of these two linked shaking ceremonies the first is barely differentiated from the ordinary introductory substitute-shaking. The second is more differentiated but it has remained, so to speak, half-way to the grunt-whistle. Mandarin males display from the autumn until May, and it is a wonderful sight to observe a group in ‘full sail’. These remarkable communal courtship rituals continue intermittently throughout the autumn and winter months until the flocks break up and, usually by around February, pair formation, in which the female plays the leading role, is complete. This is indicated principally by the female directing an ‘inciting display’ at her rejected suitors, followed by a ‘coquettedisplay’ which provokes her chosen mate to display: by a show of unilateral and reciprocal mutual preening; by the drake dipping his head and bill towards the duck and then drawing his bill down to his own breast or flank; by the pursuit of the female by the male or vice versa; by ceremonial synchronised drinking; and by preening behind the wing by the male. Mandarin Ducks are normally monogamous – sometimes over a period of several years (Cabot 2009) – though some drakes may be bigamous or even occasionally polygamous. Mating, which always takes place on a quiet stretch of lentic or lotic water, is often initiated by the female, which assumes a half-submerged enticing and submissive prone position1. After mating the pair normally swim to the bank to preen (Johnsgard 1965).

Breeding biology During February, the flocks that assembled in autumn and remained together throughout the winter begin to break up and disperse, as paired birds seek a suitable nesting-site. This, selected by the female, is almost invariably in a hole or cavity in the trunk or branch of a tree (especially oaks Quercus spp.), normally from 30cm to 2.5m in depth and up to 15m agl. These holes or cavities are usually formed when branches break off from the trunk; occasionally the decay of the core of the tree causes the hole or cavity to be several metres deep, but this does not in any way prevent the escape of the ducklings from the nest. Nests have occasionally been found in thick vegetation on the ground, under a bush or fallen branch or among tree roots (e.g. Madge & Burn 1988). However, A.K. Davies (pers. comm.), who studied Mandarin Ducks – and especially their breeding strategy – for many years in Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, never discovered any nest on the ground. Nesting-boxes are readily accepted in those areas where there is a shortage of natural sites, due either to woodland management having reduced the amount of mature standing timber or to a lack of old deciduous broadleaved trees. Indeed, in some places nest-boxes are occupied preferentially even when natural cavities are available. (In an attempt to prevent the occupation of a Tom Tubbs box (see Appendix 5) by, in particular Jackdaws Corvus monedula and Grey Squirrels Sciurus carolinensis, I fixed such a box, kindly given to me by Lawton L. Shurtleff, to a post actually planted in the water; although this was effective in preventing intrusion by such unwanted competitors, Mandarin also unfortunately declined to use it). No nesting material is used, the nest being a simple depression already lined

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with wood chips or other detritus (Cramp & Simmons 1977). The first eggs may be laid as early as the third week of March – up to 25% according to Andy Davies (pers. comm.) – but the main laying period normally lasts from early April until the first week of June. The nine to 12 off-white eggs, measuring about 49mm x 36mm, are laid almost daily, although the laying pattern can be extremely variable. Larger clutches have a shorter laying period than might be expected but a longer period of incubation; the mean laying period is about 15 days and the mean period of incubation around 33 days (range of 30–39) for a mean clutch size of 12 eggs. Overall, around 70% of incubated eggs normally hatch successfully (http://www/bbk.ac.uk/biology/our-staff/academic/glenn-baggott/Currentresearch). Incubation, by the female only, lasts for between 28 and 33 days and begins shortly before the laying of the final egg2. The male, who usually stays nearby during the incubation period and even on occasion enters the nest cavity and remains with the female for several hours, accompanies his mate when she leaves the nest – usually at dawn and dusk – to feed, having sometimes, but not invariably, covered the eggs with down plucked from her breast. This may involve a return flight of up to 2.5km. During the early stages of incubation the female may take a third feeding break during the afternoon. That feeding times for nesting females are at least partially governed by photoperiodism is suggested by the fact that on dull, cloudy and overcast days a female is likely to leave the nest for her dusk feed considerably earlier in the evening than on bright and sunny days (pers. obs.). Not infrequently, four or more female Mandarin may lay a total of up to 40 eggs in the same nest, a phenomenon known as ‘dumping’; this is usually intraspecific but may on occasion be interspecific, as e.g. with Goosanders Mergus merganser in Scotland (Anderson & Petty 1996). Dumping is a phenomenon that occurs in many species of birds. With Mandarin, up to four or more females may dump eggs in the same nest, which will then normally be ‘adopted’ and incubated by a single female, while the other females start to lay clutches elsewhere. Some females seem – like the Common Cuckoo Cuculus canorus – to be naturally parasitic, laying eggs but never incubating them. If the number of dumped eggs is more than about 30, those on the periphery may get cold, in which case the clutch will probably be abandoned. If a clutch of dumped eggs does not exceed about 20, all will usually hatch successfully (Cramp & Simmons 1977). In a normal clutch, the eggs all hatch synchronously. The young emerge well developed, and usually leave the nest and its vicinity within 24 hours. The female stands at the base of the tree with her head pointing upwards, uttering a soft encouraging call to her offspring that, according to Savage (1952), is not used at any other time. Unlike the young of ground-nesting species, Mandarin ducklings show no fear of heights in leaving the nest (Kear 1967); they scramble up the sides of the nest-cavity with their needle-sharp claws and drop to the ground; this fall has sometimes been likened to ‘parachuting’ but, as Andy Davies (pers. comm.) points out, the nestlings tend to hit the ground quite hard and bounce, though without incurring any harm, protected as they are by their light weight and dense down (Kear 1990). Once on the ground, the ducklings may travel for up to 1.5km to find food and water. Fledging takes place after 40–45 days, and the young become increasingly independent of their parents shortly afterwards. Although Mandarin normally lay only one clutch, replacement eggs may sometimes be laid if the original clutch is robbed or predated. While Mandarin ducklings are small, much of their time is spent on land, which helps to save them from predation by Northern Pike Esox lucius, a fate that befalls the young of many waterbirds. On land, their main predators in Britain and Continental Europe are probably Carrion Crows Corvus corone, Common Magpies Pica pica, Feral Cats Felis catus, Red Foxes Vulpes vulpes and where they occur Pine Martens Martes martes and American Mink Neovison vison. Common

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(Brown) Rats Rattus norvegicus sometimes kill Mandarin ducklings on land, and more rarely Weasels Mustela nivalis and Stoats M. erminea. Mandarin adults also suffer from predation from these species. There are anecdotal accounts of the death by drowning of Mandarin ducklings after harassment by Common Coots Fulica atra. According to the distinguished ornithologist, the late Derek Goodwin (pers. comm.), Mandarin adults in Britain are also subject to predation by Northern Goshawks Accipter gentilis, but as one of my correspondents queried, apropos of this claim, ‘When did you last see a British Goshawk?’ In open ground with little cover for the predator, it is remarkable how stoical Mandarin can sometimes be in the presence of Red Foxes, which on occasion will pass within 5m of resting Mandarin ignoring them completely, while the birds do no more than keep a wary eye on the predator while uttering a mild alarm call (pers. obs.). If danger threatens on land or in the water, or if she is disturbed on her nest in the later stages of incubation, the female Mandarin shows great courage in protecting her brood; after uttering a throaty ‘rrrruck’ alarm call, she will attempt to distract an intruder by feigning injury. Geissen (2004) describes how two female Mandarin resolutely and successfully defended their young from an attacking Grey Heron Ardea cinerea. On the other hand, Mandarin females often spend considerable periods of time away from their young, which feed alone quite unconcernedly in waterside undergrowth. If disturbed on land, they either ‘freeze’ – blending in well with their surroundings – or scramble quickly into the water, where they swim submerged for up to 15m before resurfacing, when they patter rapidly along the surface with swiftly beating wings, uttering a shrill peeping cry. Ducklings also have a high-pitched piping contact call with the female, which carries for a remarkable distance. Some ducklings occasionally stray away from their siblings and become ‘explorers’, usually surviving quite well on their own (Delacour 1959). The survival rate of ducklings is on average between three and five out of clutches of nine to 12 eggs (25–56%). The question arises as to why the Mandarin’s close congener, the Wood Duck Aix sponsa, though given much the same opportunities as the Mandarin to become naturalised in Britain, has conspicuously failed to do so. This conundrum has been comprehensively addressed by the late Janet Kear who asked ‘What are the essential differences between these two closely related woodland ducks that allows one introduction to “take” and the other to do so only tenuously?’ (Kear 1990: 179). The adults of the two species are both hardy and omnivorous, feeding mainly on large and medium-sized seeds that they find on land and on the shoreline or surface rather than under water (Delacour 1959; Bellrose & Holm 1994). Although the autumn and winter food of the Mandarin in Britain is known to comprise mainly acorns, sweet chestnuts and beech-mast, that of the British Wood Ducks is not well known but is presumed to be much the same. Both species have abandoned their migratory instinct and both nest in tree-cavities up to 15m agl, and both adapt readily to breeding in nest-boxes. Grey (1927) suggested that the longer fledging period of the Wood Duck in Britain, taking 10 weeks compared to the Mandarin’s eight, might extend the period of vulnerability of the former’s young to predators, and thus account for the Wood Duck’s relative lack of rearing success. (See also Savage 1952). Another discrepancy between the two species is that both originate from different latitudes. The mid-latitude of the Mandarin’s breeding range in the Far East is about 47ºN (between 36ºN and 55ºN), while that of the Wood Duck in North America is 41ºN (around 31ºN to 51ºN). Such a difference in latitudinal distribution, though apparently small, is likely to have an effect on such characteristics as laying-date, size of clutch, egg and nestling weight, incubation and fledging periods, and dates of moulting (Murton & Kear 1978). It seems reasonable to assume that two such closely related species, breeding in different parts of the temperate zone, would be likely to vary in these characteristics because spring arrives earlier closer to the Equator but comes when days are shorter, so that they nest under different

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day-length cycles (Kear 1990). Records from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust’s centres at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire and at Peakirk north of Peterborough, at latitudes of respectively 52ºN and 53ºN, reveal that Wood Ducks in captivity lay earlier than do Mandarin (Murton & Kear 1978); the earliest Wood Duck egg recorded was laid on 1 March, while on average (over a 36-year period) the earliest eggs have been laid on 20 March. In contrast, the earliest Mandarin egg was laid on 22 March at a time when the day-length is over one hour longer and, on average over a period of 33 years, eggs were first laid on 15 April. Records from London Zoo during the 19th century (Sclater 1880) show much the same differences, with Wood Duck nestlings appearing on average 21 days earlier than Mandarins. This fits in with the climate of the two species’ native ranges, but means that Wood Duck in Britain are incubating eggs and rearing ducklings when temperatures are still relatively cold. Furthermore, the eggs of the Wood Duck are on average smaller than those of the Mandarin (38.5g from a sample of 100 at Slimbridge compared to the Mandarin’s 43.5g); this results in Wood Duck ducklings hatching around 16% lighter in weight than Mandarin ducklings, and thus the former lose heat more rapidly and need more brooding than the latter. In essence, although the Wood Duck’s genes adapt the species well to life in its North American homeland (Bellrose & Holm 1994) – much of which is far closer to the Equator than Britain – its ducklings are ill-adapted to the damp and chill of an early British spring (Kear 1990). The Wood Duck in Britain does have three factors potentially in its favour. Firstly, because it is an early breeder, it can commandeer nest-holes before native British species or Mandarin start searching for nest-sites – although, as Viscount Grey of Fallodon observed (Gordon 1937), British Mandarin have been known to ‘dump’ their eggs in Wood Duck clutches, leaving the Wood Duck to rear Mandarin ducklings with her own. Secondly, since both species cease laying around the end of May, the Wood Duck has on average a longer breeding season, 95 days at Slimbridge, compared to the Mandarin’s 66. Finally, as the Wood Duck tends to lay a slightly larger clutch (10–14 compared to the Mandarin’s 9–12) it can hatch more ducklings, but as these are lighter than those of the Mandarin this seems to cancel out the apparent numerical advantage. The British Mandarin, as Kear (1990: 181) points out is ‘unlikely to increase in numbers at a vast rate’, since its ducklings are small and not particularly well insulated (this last point must be at least debatable – if ducklings can survive in northern Ussuriland in north-eastern Siberia, they should surely be able to cope with the worst of a British spring), and the adults’ winter food is in short supply if the nut harvest fails. Perhaps one of the main reasons for the success of the Mandarin in Britain and the comparative failure of the Wood Duck is that the founder stock of the former was vigorous (having come directly from the wild in China) and found a near-ideal vacant ecological niche, whereas the founder stock of the Wood Duck was both small and relatively weak, since they were derived from the descendants of birds that had for long been in captivity. The chromosomal differences of the Mandarin from other species of ducks (see also Appendix I) may be responsible for its inability to hybridise successfully with other species (Yamashina 1952). ‘… the chromosomes in the gonads are more numerous in the Mandarin than in any other ducks (84 in the male and 83 in the female against 80 and 79 in all others). Furthermore, all the Mandarin’s chromosomes are straight whereas some are V-shaped in all other ducks’ (Scott 1980: 99). Indeed, Gillham and Gillham (1996) list only a single case of hybridisation by Mandarin (with the Laysan Duck Anas laysanensis), which produced two ducklings without eyes, both of which died within eight weeks of hatching. For many years, the study of the Mandarin Duck in Britain was sorely neglected, probably because professional ornithologists thought that to investigate the status of an alien species was

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not a subject for serious research. Fortunately, not everyone felt the same, and in the 1980s A.K. Davies and G.K. Baggott made an intensive study of Mandarin Ducks in Windsor Great Park and adjacent areas – almost certainly the most thorough piece of sustained investigation into the species outside its native range – which yielded a number of published and unpublished reports, many of which refer to the Mandarin’s breeding biology. Davies and Baggott (1989a) studied the clutch size in relation to nesting-sites. They found that the species can have a highly variable clutch size and that this can occur in both natural treeholes and cavities and in artificial (nest-box) sites. Some very large (>17) clutches were recorded. Although the provision of nest-boxes did not have an effect on the size of clutches incubated in natural nest-sites, clutches incubated in artificial sites were smaller than those in natural sites when both were available. The provision of nest-boxes greatly increased the overall number of eggs incubated annually simply because of the number of additional clutches incubated in boxes. Some sites, both natural and artificial, were unused in any one year, possibly because of the size of the population. Over 25% of clutches, in both natural and artificial sites, remained unincubated, even though they were similar in size to clutches that were incubated. Davies and Baggott concluded that variability in clutch size was due to intraspecific nest parasitism, and that the provision of nest-boxes had little effect on this phenomenon. Davies and Baggott (1989b) also found that incubated clutches were larger when laid early in the breeding season – i.e. in March and early April. In all nests examined there were days when a single egg, or no egg, was added to the clutch; days on which more than one egg was added were infrequent. It was found that the larger the clutch, the greater the likelihood of more than a single egg being added, though the number of days on which no eggs were added was not related to the size of the clutch. Larger clutches had a relatively shorter laying period than expected, but a larger incubation period than smaller clutches. Embryonic mortality, which occurred in the period immediately prior to pipping, was the main cause of unhatched eggs. Similar proportions of unhatched eggs resulted from eggs laid in clutches before and after incubation had begun, and larger clutches did not have proportionately more unhatched eggs. Since all clutches examined had at least one day on which no eggs were laid, Davies and Baggott concluded that the proportion of nests – both natural and artificial – parasitised was greater than that estimated from nests with more than one egg laid on any one day. In a letter to British Birds (1987), Davies describes the unusual occurrence of a Jackdaw Corvus monedula hatching a Mandarin Duck egg. The Jackdaw built a nest on top of a clutch of nine eggs laid by a Mandarin in a nest-box. The Jackdaw commenced, and the Mandarin continued, to lay in the joint nest. Eventually the larger duck eggs crushed those of the Jackdaw. The two surviving Mandarin eggs were incubated by the Jackdaw (whose own incubation period is 17–18 days) for more than 30 days, one egg hatching successfully and the other proving to be infertile. BTO nest record cards examined by Davies revealed some interesting statistics: 88.1% of nests occurred at an altitude below 30m asl (in Japan nests have been found at up to 600m asl on the slopes of Mount Fuji); 84.3% of natural nest-sites were between 1.5 and 7.3m agl (four were at near ground level though none actually on the ground, and one was 10.7m agl); 65.5% of clutches numbered between five and 14 eggs and 89.5% had between five and 25 eggs (these high averages were thought to be a result of a Surrey ‘bias’ towards ‘dumping’; P. Stevens (pers. comm. to A.K. Davies) reported up to 50 eggs in some nests in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire); 97% of habitats favoured by Mandarin comprised woodland and cultivated or artificially maintained farmland and parkland, but nests were also surprisingly recorded on heathland, fens and commons; 75% of trees used for nesting were oak Quercus spp. or Ash Fraxinus excelsior/ornus. Davies believed the success rate of clutches to hatching exceeds 50%.

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Between 70% and 80% of eggs laid in a successful clutch will hatch and the ducklings leave the nest, although only around 10% survive to adulthood. Dumped clutches that are removed often result in the laying of successful replacements (A.K. Davies pers. obs.). Research by Davies also revealed the different species with which Mandarin compete for nesting-sites; these were Stock Dove Columba oenas, Little Owl Athene noctua, Tawny Owl Strix aluco, Barn Owl Tyto alba, Jackdaw Corvus monedula, Kestrel Falco tinnunculus, Great Tit Parus major, Mallard Anas platyrhynchos and Grey Squirrel Sciurus carolinensis. This competition was manifest in various forms: (i) Ejection of Mandarin female from her clutch (Kestrel and Stock Dove), the intruder subsequently laying her eggs alongside those of the Mandarin. (ii)

Taking possession of previously used Mandarin sites before Mandarin have started laying (Great Tit, Mallard, Tawny Owl, Grey Squirrel); in some of such instances Mandarin have repossessed the site by laying eggs on top of those of the intruder (Great Tit and Tawny Owl) and trampling and laying on a Grey Squirrel drey.

(iii) By laying synchronously with Mandarin in the same site (Mallard, Stock Dove). (iv) By visiting potential nest-sites while Mandarin, which tend to appear rather hesitant at this time, are inspecting the same site (Tawny Owl, Jackdaw, Stock Dove). (v)

By using the same type of site in the same area, sometimes the same hole but in different years from those of the Mandarin (Barn Owl, Little Owl, Kestrel, Stock Dove).

(These interspecific competition records compiled by Davies from BTO nesting data took place before the now known competition between Mandarin and Goldeneye Bucephala clangula and Mandarin and Goosander Mergus merganser in Scotland). The Mandarin Duck has an extremely variable clutch size (between 6 and 40) which indicates a considerable degree of conspecific brood parasitism (cbp). Cbp is a widespread alternative female reproduction tactic in birds, and has been studied by Davies and Baggott (1989a, b) in the introduced population of Mandarin Ducks in Windsor Great Park in England. Between 2004 and 2009, Deng et al. (in press) made the first study of Cbp of Mandarin in their native range in the Far East. The objectives of the study were to provide data on aspects of Cbp and nesting biology of the species, to gain a better appreciation of its behavioural traits and status in north-eastern China, and to facilitate the development of conservation strategies. The study site selected was the Zuojia Nature Reserve in north-eastern China, which stretches from the eastern Changbai Mountains to the western plain (126º 1' – 127º 2' N, 44º 6' – 45º 5' E) and lies at an altitude of between 200 and 530m asl. This region is subject to an eastern monsoon climate that is characterised by hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters. The forest type within the reserve is secondary growth forest, with trees of around 40–50 years old. None of these trees, so far as is known, has ever been used by Mandarin for nesting. Cbp has a number of potential benefits; females that lay eggs in the nests of other females could avoid the physiological effort and risks associated with incubation and parental care after hatching; typical parasitism may be associated with an overall increase in total fecundity; parasitism may benefit females unable to find a suitable nest-site of their own or which have lost a nest as a result of destruction or predation; spreading eggs among a number of nests may help to avoid the risk of a failed clutch jeopardising an entire reproductive output (Deng

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et al. in press). Cbp is disproportionately high among wildfowl in comparison to other taxa, and wildfowl have precocial young that need less post-hatching parental care than do altricial young; this may minimise the cost to foster hosts and help to explain the prevalence of CBP among wildfowl. On the other hand, cbp among Wood Ducks Aix sponsa (the Mandarin Duck’s only close relation), which has been associated with nest densities, has been shown to lead to increased levels of nest desertion, reduced hatching and fledging success, increased risks of predation and energy costs as a consequence of longer incubation periods (Bellrose & Holm 1994). Prior to the study by Deng et al. (in press) there were no records of Mandarin breeding in the Zuojia area, north-eastern China, where the species was known only as a summer visitor. After the erection of nest-boxes in the reserve in 2004 breeding soon took place; the number of boxes monitored ranged from 52 (in 2004), 56 (2005), 61 (2006), 68 (2007), 77 (2008) and 80 (2009). Nest-boxes were monitored at intervals of between one and seven days. Nests in which two or more eggs were added per day were designated as ‘parasitised’, and nests that contained undamaged eggs and from which the female was absent for more than five consecutive days were classified as ‘abandoned’. Nests that contained a full lining of down and warm eggs were assumed to be in the course of incubation, and nests in which nestlings were observed or egg-shell fragments were found late in the incubation period were deemed to be successful. Unhatched eggs were collected to determine their fertilisation. ‘Incomplete clutches’ were defined as those that did not enter the incubation stage, so that a final clutch size could not be determined. ‘Combined clutch size’ was defined as the number of eggs laid in a nest as a completed clutch. ‘Clutch size of unparasitised nests’ implied that all eggs in that particular nest were deposited by the same female, and ‘clutch size of parasitised nests’ implied that the eggs in a completed clutch were all laid by two or more females. Nests that were deserted during the laying period (‘incomplete clutches’) were removed and were not used in calculating the overall clutch size. In their study, Deng et al. (in press) found that 42 out of 410 nest-box years were used by Mandarin, with an average of seven boxes being used per year, ranging from one to 15 annually. Eighteen out of 39 nests (46.1%) with a completed clutch were parasitised; the frequency of cbp in Mandarin was found to be positively correlated with nest densities (boxes were placed Table 17. Reproductive parameters of Mandarin Ducks during the 2004–09 breeding season in the Zuojia Nature Reserve in north-eastern China. Variables Unparasitised Parasitised Total Combined Number of nests with eggs

24

18

42

Number of nests with full clutches

21

18

39

Number of successfully hatched clutches

16

7

23

Number of nests that ducklings left successfully

16

7

23

Clutch size

9.7 ± 1.6

18.8 ± 3.2

14.0 ± 5.1

(Range, n)

7-12, 21

15-25, 18

7-25, 39

Hatching percentage rate

88.7 ± 3.2

83.5 ± 3.9

87.1 ± 12.0

Percentage of ducklings leaving boxes

100 ± 0.0

96.6 ± 1.7

98.9 ± 2.8

Number of ducklings successfully leaving nest

8.4 ± 0.7

15.4 ± 1.3

10.5 ± 4.4

Source: Deng et al. In press for Wilson Journal of Ornithology.

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between 8m and 13m agl and between 50m and 150m apart). It was estimated that an average of 2.5 females laid eggs in each parasitised nest. The first eggs were laid between 22 April and 11 June, with cbp occurring more frequently during the early part of the breeding season. The median first egg date for parasitised nests was 5 May and for unparasitised nests 17 May. Eggs in individual nest-boxes were laid on either consecutive days or at intervals of between one and six days. The laying period for parasitised and unparasitised nests varied between 15.3 and 11.9 days respectively; the mean incubation period for both parasitised and unparasitised successful clutches was 32.7 days (minimum 31 days, maximum 36). Three nests were abandoned during the egg-laying period, with the incomplete clutch sizes ranging from one to six. The clutch-size of parasitised and unparasitised nests varied considerably, being 18.8 (range 15–25) and 9–7 (range 7–12) respectively; the combined clutch size was 14. It was found that the clutch size for unparasitised nests decreased as the breeding season progressed, but it did not do so for parasitised nests. Deng et al. (in press) found that 39 of 42 nests achieved a complete clutch size during the breeding seasons of 2004–09, 23 of which hatched and fledged successfully. The 19 unsuccessful clutches failed mainly during the period of incubation (84.2%), followed by the egg-laying period (15.8%); no failures were recorded during the brief fledging period. The hatching rates of both parasitised and unparasitised clutches were around 87%. The great majority (98.9%) of ducklings left the nest successfully, the average number for unparasitised nests, parasitised nests and combined being 8.4, 15.4 and 10.5 respectively. The principal cause of egg loss was nest desertion (72.8%), followed by non-fertilisation (11.4%) and human disturbance (11.1%). Sibling trampling was the sole recorded cause of duckling loss in the nest – five ducklings from three parasitised nests dying in this way. These findings by Deng et al. (in press) in north-eastern China are broadly in line with those of Davies and Baggott (1989a, b) in southern England. Since the Mandarin is a hole-nesting species, cbp could have important consequences for the water balance of the egg within a clutch. Recent research by G.K. Baggott and K. GraemeCook (see www.bbk.ac.uk/biology/our-staff/academic/glenn-baggott/Current_research) on the water economy of the egg involves the nature of changes in the egg water vapour conductance during natural incubation as it relates to the structure of the shell and its cuticular covering. The role of microbial flora on the shell surface during incubation is also being studied. In natural (but not in artificial) incubation, the shell conductance increases in the first two weeks. During this period, material alterations occur in the microflora of the shell surface, with the emergence of a single bacterium as the predominant species; Baggott and Graeme-Cook have been trying to determine whether bacterial action is responsible for changes in egg permeability. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, G.K. Baggott (pers. comm.) researched two aspects of Mandarin breeding biology – the characteristics of brood parasitism and the nature of the incubation process. Regarding the former, Baggott’s research indicated that ‘the Mandarin is unusual in dumping eggs. I could find no other species of brood parasites that did this – that is, laying eggs into a cavity which never shows any indication of being adopted by a broody bird.’ With regard to the latter, Baggott (pers. comm.) found that Mandarin Duck eggs are, apparently unusually, laid with a cuticle on the surface of the shell that almost totally seals the underlying pores. Eggs thus have a very low permeability to oxygen and water vapour – a permeability that is inadequate for the metabolic demands of the growing embryo. This is why artificial incubation of Mandarin Duck eggs is almost invariably unsuccessful. In natural incubation, the permeability of the shell increases to a value typical for an egg of its size.

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Beckett et al. (2003) identified one major protein in the cuticle of unincubated Mandarin eggs that was undetectable in the shell matrix. This protein had a molecular weight of 30kDa and was not a glycoprotein. A further eight protein bands, found in the cuticular sample, also occurred in the shell matrix fraction. Cuticular and shell fractions of Mandarin eggs obtained from nests after natural incubation showed the loss of all detectable cuticle proteins other than the 30kDa protein. Beckett et al. (2003) found that in vitro at natural incubation temperatures, shell samples incubated with a strain of Bacillus licheniformis – originally isolated from the surface of incubated eggs – degraded all cuticle proteins. In summary, Beckett et al. (2003) only identified a single protein exclusive to the cuticle fraction. Other proteins they found on the eggs’ surface were also contained inside the shell matrix. Thus natural incubation of Mandarin eggs, and incubation in vitro, with the bacterium B. licheniformis, resulted in the loss of proteins inside the cuticular layer. This suggested to Beckett et al. (2003) that the bacteria may be responsible for increasing egg conductance during incubation by removing the cuticle layer over the pores. Baggott and Graeme-Cook (1997) measured the egg conductance (GH20) of Mandarin Duck eggs before and after being placed for a period of incubation in a nest. On the first day of incubation the GH20 of many Mandarin eggs was so low for their weight that adequate oxygen intake later in incubation was not available. When naturally incubated, however, the GH20 of Mandarin eggs increased c. 54% from between days 1 and 28 of incubation, and of this increase about 70% occurred in the first week and 80% in the first fortnight. During the first week of natural incubation, counts of surface bacteria capable of being cultured at incubation temperature decrease, but the proportion of B. licheniformis increases (Baggott & Graeme-Cook 2002). As this bacteria species is able to digest duck cuticle (Baggott & Graeme op. cit.), Beckett et al. (2003) hypothesised that it may be responsible for the increase in GH20 in the first week of incubation. Research revealed that only one protein exclusive to the cuticle fraction could be identified. Other proteins found on the surface of the shell were also located within the shell matrix. Natural and in vitro incubation of eggs with the bacterium B. licheniformis resulted in the loss of proteins within the cuticular layer. This suggests that the bacterium may be the causal agent for increasing egg conductance during incubation by removing the cuticle layer covering the pores. In a population of Mandarin nesting in boxes in Windsor Great Park, Berkshire, Davies and Baggott (1989a) found that the period for the completion of a clutch prior to the start of incubation was 15 days; that the incubation period was approximately 33 days; and that many females incubated extremely large clutches, sometimes in excess of 30 eggs, presumably as a result of ‘dumping’. Around 25% of eggs failed to hatch because of the death of the embryo or due to infertility (Davies & Baggott 1989b). The total bacterial counts per egg from the shell of Mandarins at this site were highest for eggs prior to incubation when measured at two culture temperatures, 25ºC and 38ºC (Baggott & Graeme-Cook 1997). The number of bacteria capable of growing at 38ºC – approximately the temperature of incubation – showed a noticeable decline by the end of the first week of incubation compared to samples collected prior to incubation. This decline continued into the following weeks of incubation, with much less variability in the bacterial numbers. The number of bacteria able to grow at the lower temperature (25ºC) exhibited a broadly similar, though less noticeable, decline. This alteration in the total bacterial counts per egg was associated by Baggott and Graeme-Cook (2002) with an increase in the proportion of B. licheniformis in these samples. Clearly, B. licheniformis is better able to survive (and even thrive) during the period of incubation than other members of the egg surface flora, including other species of Bacillus. In the Mandarin Duck, Baggott and Graeme-Cook (2002) found that fungal/actinomycetes

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counts were low in culture at 25ºC, the highest counts per egg occurring in unincubated eggs, which may suggest organisms introduced to the nest by incubating females. When cultured at 38ºC, very few shell samples yielded any fungal counts, since fungi occurring in the nest or on feathers grow best at temperatures below those of homeothermic bodies (Pugh 1972). However, as Baggott and Graeme-Cook (2002) point out, the low fungal/actinomycetes counts and the decrease during incubation of the numbers of bacteria able to thrive at 38ºC – including possible potential pathogens – could have been partially due to interactions between the microbial flora of the shell surface. During the period of natural incubation by the Mandarin, there is an increase in eggshell conductance to water vapour. For example (as indicated above), when unincubated eggs were added to incubated eggs for seven days the conductance of these eggs increased by 72% (Baggott & Graeme-Cook 1997). Furthermore, when B. licheniformis, isolated from the shell surface of Mandarin eggs, was inoculated on the cuticular surface of shell pieces and incubated at 38ºC for seven days at a relative humidity of 40%, visual evidence occurred of both cuticular degeneration and the growth of the bacterium. Since the cuticle of the egg comprises c. 85% protein with carbohydrate, lipid and minerals (Wedral et al. 1974; Sparks 1994), the protease and glycolytic activity shown by B. licheniformis might well account for the observed degradation. Hitherto, only a pseudomonad had been known to digest the cuticle of the eggshell of a domestic fowl using protease (Board et al. 1979). Since it is known that the removal of the cuticle of an egg by chemical means can substantially increase egg conductance (Deeming 1987; Thompson & Goldie 1990), it is possible that bacterial degradation of the cuticle could increase egg conductance by facilitating access of gases to the shell pores. This might, suggest Baggott and Graeme-Cook (2002), be the basis for the increase in egg conductance to water vapour observed in the Mandarin during the process of natural incubation. The ability of B. licheniformis to survive at the temperature of incubation and its expression of antibiotic activity would help in this process by ensuring that this microbe flourishes on the surface of the egg-shell during natural incubation.

Moulting While the females are engaged in rearing their broods, the drakes form all-male flocks during the first half of May, where from early June they slowly moult out of their beautiful breeding finery into the dull eclipse plumage that is very similar to the normal attire of the females. For a time, after the loss of the primary wing feathers, they are unable to fly, and are thus particularly vulnerable to avian, aquatic and terrestrial predators. By late September, all but the very latemoulting drakes have regained their full plumage, and even those will reassume their former glory by late November. The females, being occupied in rearing their young, moult around four weeks later than their mates, and so have a correspondingly later period of flightlessness. By the end of September, when the young of the year have become fully independent, Mandarin begin again to assemble in large autumnal flocks. By late September/early October, the first communal courtship rituals have begun, and the Mandarin’s year has come full circle.

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Notes 1. ‘For a long time the actual mechanics of copulation and insemination in birds was a mystery. It was made more confusing by the fact that the males of only certain birds such as swans, ducks [Anatidae] and ostriches [Struthio camelus] had a penis, whereas others like small birds [e.g. Passeriformes] did not. Most small birds copulate very briefly, usually for just one or two seconds … copulation [in small birds] comprises the coming together of the male and female cloaca’ (Birkhead 2011: 312, 315). A change of sex can occur in many species of birds, but in the case of the Mandarin it is especially noticeable because of the elaborate plumage of the male, which is suppressed by female hormones. In the females of most birds only the left ovary is functional, probably due to shortage of space in the body cavity and/or as a weight-saving adaptation for flight (Birkhead 2011); if it becomes damaged for any reason (for example by being shot) and ceases to produce oestrogen, the rudimentary right ovary sometimes increases in size and becomes, in effect, a testis, resulting in a change of sex (Kear 2005). (For further information on sex-change in birds see e.g. Birkhead 2011: Chapter 8). 2. In a study of brooding Red Jungle Fowl Gallus gallus hens, Hogan (1989) found that during incubation (which lasts for some 21 days and during which hens, unsupported by their mates, only make infrequent and brief breaks for food and water) females may lose between 17% and 20% of their total body weight. Mandarin females – similarly unsupported by their mates – brood for between 28 and 30 days but make longer and more frequent breaks for sustenance. So far as I am aware, no one has yet researched the possible weight-loss of incubating Mandarin females, but such research might yield interesting results.

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Chapter 10

Food and foraging Although Mandarin Ducks are strictly speaking omnivorous, they eat mainly vegetable matter. In Britain and Europe, this includes in spring and summer Amphibious Bistort Polygonum amphibium (commonly known as ‘pink tooth-brush’ waterweed or water knotweed) and seeds from a wide variety of plants including grasses Gramineae. In late summer/early autumn, after the harvest, Mandarin glean corn from the stubble fields. In late autumn and winter, they subsist mainly on nuts – especially Spanish or sweet chestnuts Castanea sativa and Aesculus spp., acorns Quercus spp. and beech-mast Fagus sylvaticum. Animal foods include small aquatic invertebrates, insects (especially Diptera) taken from aquatic plants, land- and water-snails Mollusca, worms Annelida, small amphibians (both in the adult and larval stages), small fish (especially Minnows Phoxinus phoxinus) and fish-spawn (e.g. Scott & Boyd 1957; Lever 1977, 1990; Long 1981; Madge & Burn 1988). In captivity, bread is readily taken. In Germany, Geissen (2005) observed moulting Mandarin tearing down and eating the leaves of Alder Alnus glutinosa, possibly because their inability to fly made the catching of animal prey difficult. Although Mandarin do feed by day, they are mainly nocturnal (though actually cathemeral) foragers, usually taking their food from the ground or from the surface of the margins of water bodies; they seldom up-end and even more rarely dive. In the autumn of 1994, however, Morris (1998) saw a Mandarin drake diving for submerged acorns in 70cm of water on the River Dee

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in Cheshire. Particularly on land, Mandarin are competitive feeders. I have frequently seen the male of a pair of Mandarin aggressively – with outstretched neck and open bill – driving away from its food such species as Eurasian Jackdaws Corvus monedula, Common Starlings Sturnus vulgaris, Common Moorhens Gallinula chloropus, Stock Doves Columba oenas, Common Woodpigeons C. palumbus and Eurasian Collared Doves Streptopelia decaocto, while the female has similarly seen off other Mandarin males who are not her mate. In their native range in the Far East, Mandarin eat insects in spring (especially beetles Coleoptera), land- and water-snails, the seeds of wild grape Vitis spp., horsetail Equisetum spp., rice Oryza sativa, grasses and fish (including Minnows), the young of lampreys Petromyzontidae, and fish spawn. Worms, small amphibians and their larvae are also sometimes taken. In August and September, flocks of Mandarin raid fields of Rice and Buckwheat Fagopyrum esculentum; in early autumn, land-snails again feature prominently in the birds’ diet, and in late autumn and winter acorns and beech-mast become increasingly important (e.g. Ji et al. 1990).

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Appendix 1 Classification Kingdom: Animalia (animals) Phylum: Chordata (animals with a notochord or vertebral column) Subphylum: Vertebrata (animals with a vertebral column) Class: Aves (birds) Order: Anseriformes: (screamers and waterfowl) Family: Anatidae (swans, geese and ducks) Subfamily: Anatinae (ducks other than whistling ducks) Tribe: Cairinini (wood ducks/perching ducks and geese) Genus: Aix1 Species: galericulata2

Monotypic The Mandarin Duck is sometimes (e.g. by Peters’ Check-List of Birds of the World, Vol. I: 171 (1931) and Yamashina (1949)) placed in the also monotypic genus Dendronessa Swainson. However, Austin and Kuroda (1953: 362) say that: Yamashina (1949: 154) has proposed separating the Mandarin Duck in the monotypic genus Dendronessa Swainson on cytological evidence which shows the species to be widely distinct from all other waterfowl in its chromosome formula. The cytological basis for systematics advanced by Yamashina (idem), which in brief adapts his recent discoveries in the nuclear morphology of hybrids to the Darwinian concept of species as those individuals able to produce fertile offspring of their own kind, has definite merits and advantages. However, this seems to be one instance where it breaks down, for from all but the cytological standpoint, the Mandarin and Wood Duck, Aix sponsa, are most certainly congeneric. While the males are radically different in plumage, the females are almost identical. Furthermore the two species are almost exactly alike in their life histories, their nesting habits, voices, manners of flight, and general ecologies. They are so similar that to consider them a case of parallel evolution and to deny them a close common ancestor is too great a strain on our present concepts of systematic procedure … it has been impossible to hybridize the Mandarin with any other waterfowl, but in view of the present tendency to use the genus as a collective rather than a distinctive unit, it seems ill-advised to separate these two species generically on the cytological evidence alone, when all other evidence points to their close relationship. As long ago as the 1930s, it was shown that such so-called ‘sister species’ as the Mandarin and Wood Duck were often widely separated geographically, and that this separation was linked to how these species arose from a mutual ancestor3. Mayr (1942) suggested that the combined effects of evolution and geographical barriers could encourage one species to split into two because such barriers were simply the side-effects of natural selection that induced

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geographically discrete populations to evolve differently. If this happens for a sufficiently long period of time, the species’ genomes become so different from each other that, when they coalesce in a hybrid, they are not viable. This is likely to disrupt development of the young and, as in the case of Mandarin x Wood Duck hybrids, to cause such hybrids to either die prematurely or, if they do survive, to be either deformed and/or sterile.

Notes 1. ‘Gr[eek] aix unknown diving bird mentioned by Aristotle [in his De Anima (c. 330 BC], not further identified, but since conjectured to be a small goose, a grebe or a duck.’ (Jobling 2010: 37.) 2. ‘L[atin] galericulatum peruke, wig (dim. from galerum cap, bonnet). “Chinese Teal” of Edwards [History of Birds] (1751) (Aix).’ (Jobling 2010: 169.) 3. It has been estimated that it takes approximately 100,000 to five million years for two reproductively discrete species to evolve from a common ancestor.

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Appendix 2 Taxonomy Anas galericulata, Ind. Orn. ii. 871. Lin. i. 206. Gm. Lin. i. 530. Mus. Lev. t. 10. Shaw’s Zool. v. 21. pl. 885. Querquedula Sinensis, Bris. vi. 450. Id. 8vo. ii. 478. Gerin. v. t. 599. Kinmodsui, Kaempf. Jap. 129. pl. 10. f. 3. Sarcelle de la Chine, Buf. ix. 276. pl. 19. Pl. enl. 805, 806. Chinese Teal, Gen. Syn. vi. 548. Edw. pl. 102. [Source: Latham Vol. X: 363 (1824)]. Anas galericulata Linnaeus. 1758, Syst. Nat. (ed. 10) 1: 128. Based on ‘The Chinese Teal’ of Edwards, Nat. Hist. Birds, p. 102, pl. 102. (China). Aix Boie, 1828, Isis von Oken, col. 329. Aix galericulata brunnescens (Clark, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., 27, 1914: 87 (Kyushu, Japan). (Synonym.)

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Appendix 3 Description Plumage ‘The plumage of the Aix galericulata has probably not changed significantly in the last 50,000 years’ (Scott 1980: 99). They are sexually dimorphic.1 Adult male breeding. Crest of narrow elongated black feathers on forehead and crown, glossed blue-green in front, purplish-red in the centre and purplish-blue behind, extends to back. Broad band of white on side of head and crest. Cheeks creamish-buff pass into ruff of long pointed chestnut-orange ‘whisker’-like pendulous feathers on front and sides of head. Upperparts generally olive-brown. Scapular white, edged blackish-blue. Tail brown, glossed green. Characteristic chestnut-orange ‘sails’ or ‘flags’ on each side of back bordered on trailing edges with white at top and black below, are much enlarged central tertials2. Orange-brown primaries have off-white edgings which show as streaks behind ‘sails’. Upper part of breast maroon, edged with three black and two white vertical stripes. Flanks pale brownish-orange vermiculated with black and white. Lower breast, belly and under tail-coverts white. In flight, wing-coverts and remiges mainly brownish-olive, but speculum bright green edged behind with white tips to secondaries. ‘Sails’ not erect in flight (as e.g. in Gooders & Boyer 1986: 28) but may flutter in vertical plane. Adult male eclipse (non-breeding). Closely resembles adult female, from whom mainly distinguished by reddish bill, yellow legs, thicker crest and, diagnostically, more prominent white eye marking (more similar to that of female Wood Duck Aix sponsa). Adult female3. Head and neck mainly grey, darker on crown, with white eye-stripe extending back to near nape. White edge at base of bill runs into whitish throat and chin. Upperparts, from mantle to tail, including wings, brownish-olive, apart from bright green speculum and whiteedged primaries. Upper part of breast and flanks brown, with whitish horizontal egg-shaped markings arranged in rows, increasing in size from front to rear. Lower breast, belly and under tail-coverts off-white. Juvenile. Similar to adult female, but more uniformly greyish-brown with less noticeable facial markings and less clearly dappled upper breast and flanks. Nestling. Crown, upperparts and sides dark olive-brown, longer filaments tipped with oliveyellow. Spots on wings and sides of back and rump yellowish. Two post-orbital sepia stripes. Sides of head, throat and chest buffish-yellow. Underparts pale yellow.

Bare parts Adult male. Dark brown iris with pale yellow encircling ring. Bill scarlet with flesh-coloured pink or whitish nail. Feet webbed and legs orange-yellow or orange-pink.

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Adult female. Iris dark brown. Bill greyish-black to greyish-brown with paler nail, but occasionally as in male. Nail and upper culmen yellowish-orange or light grey. Feet and legs yellowish. Juvenile. Generally similar to adult female. Nestling. Iris brown. Bill brown with pale yellow nail and lower mandible. Feet darkish grey with black webs and olive-yellow streaks on front of tarsus and along sides of toes.

Measurements Male: wing 220–242mm; tail 100–115mm; tarsus 33–42mm; bill 27–31mm; culmen 27–31; overall 410–490mm. Mean weight 628g. Female: wing 215–230mm; tail 96–107mm; tarsus 30–40mm; bill 27–30mm; culmen 27– 31mm. Mean weight 512g.

Eggs Off-white/buffish stone. Average number per clutch in Britain 9–12; average size 49 x 36mm.

Vocalisation Infrequent except during communal courtship or when disturbed (Bruggers 1974, on whom this account (in Cramp & Simmons 1977) is mainly based (see also Savage 1952; Lorenz 1953; Johnsgard 1965). Calls mostly brief, and differ between sexes. Calls of male. Mainly variations of sharp, rising whistle accompanied by lower, snorting canorous nasal component. Four main calls during communal courtship, all involving whistles. (1) Basic courtship call – a brief ‘prfruib’, uttered up to 50 times per minute, particularly at commencement of courtship; also given by paired male in response to coquette-call of female (see below). (2) Display-shake call – a soft melodious, whirring whistle – ‘fwwwww’ and ‘rrrr’ uttered simultaneously. (3) Double display-shake call – ‘gnk-zit’ as in a half-suppressed sneeze, followed by a brief nasal whistle. (4) Burp-call; prolonged ‘pffrrruuiehb’, also given as contactcall when separated from mate. (5) Jibbering-call – a soft repetitious twitter-like sound, audible to humans only at close range; uttered rapidly during bridling-display and when disturbed, frequently preceding flight. (6) Quiet-call – a soft, whispering ‘ppffhhtt’ given by male to female before entering nest-cavity. (7) Alarm-call – a shrill, whistling ‘uib’ on taking flight (Savage 1952). (8) Flight-call – a brief, sharp, plaintive whistling ‘wriick’ or ‘hwick’ (Savage 1952; Cramp & Simmons 1977). Calls of female. (1) Coquette-call – loud and sharp single ‘kett’ or ‘ke’ (somewhat similar to that of a Coot Fulica atra); main component of coquette-display during communal courtship; also uttered by female separated from her mate. (2) Inciting-call – a rapidly repeated and plaintive ‘ack’ given during inciting-display, occasionally in flight, and a briefer version when anxious or alarmed. (3) Clucking-call – a soft, repeated and barely audible twittering ‘clucacluca-cluca’ (similar to (5) of male) when disturbed. (4) Hissing – uttered when disturbed late in incubation. (5) Exodus-call – soft and melodious note used to incite ducklings from nest

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(Savage 1952). (6) Distraction-call – deep, throaty calling ‘rrr-r-r-ruck’ used to warn young and deter predators (Savage 1952). Calls of young. Contact-calls uttered in groups of two to three notes. Distress-call a clear and bell-like note (J. Kear pers. comm. to Cramp & Simmons 1977).

Mutations In captivity (and occasionally in the wild), the Mandarin Duck exhibits a variety of mutations, of which the most usual (though still uncommon) is albinism. Although little is known about the origin of this mutation, it is presumed to be a result of constant pairing of related individuals (http://www.albinism.org/publications/what_is_albinism.html). Evidence of albinism is shown by minor pigmentation occurring in the plumage of both sexes, making it a recessive trait. Pale-plumaged (but not albino) individuals also occur, and are caused by a heritable colour mutation. Contrary to popular opinion, aberrantly coloured individuals generally survive well in the wild, often breeding successfully with a ‘normally’ coloured mate. The mutation that causes pale coloration is known as ‘dilution’. Several mutations (genes) can be responsible for a form of dilution, but in all cases the effect will be a pale, bleached or ‘washed-out’ coloration of the plumage. Mutations responsible for dilution all affect the amount of pigmentation. Dilution reduces the amount of pigment granules and results in paler coloration, causing originally black feathers to become grey. The Natural History Museum’s Department of Ornithology at Tring in Hertfordshire has a collection of 78 Mandarin Duck skins. Sources: e.g. Edwards 1743; Latham 1824; Miller 1925; Caldwell and Caldwell 1931; Savage 1952; Scott and Boyd 1957; Cramp and Simmons 1977; De Schaunsee 1984; Lever 1987; Madge and Burn 1988; AOU 1998; MacKinnon and Phillips 2000; Kear 2005.

Notes 1. Blackburn et al. 2009: 89; 92) claim that ‘… dichromatic species tend to be more likely to fail … [there is a] tendency for dichromatic species to fail more often.’ If this is true, which is at least questionable, the Mandarin Duck is a notable exception. 2. ‘In 1758 Carl Linnaeus … compared the broad and pointed upwards secondary remiges [actually central tertials] of the male mandarin duck to the wind-filled sails of a Roman galley (galericulata)’ (Nankinov 2006). In fact, the name galericulata (see Appendix I note 2) is derived from the male’s prominent head crest. 3. Latham (1824: 363) wrote: ‘The female is not unlike the Summer Duck [the Wood Duck A. sponsa] but has two bars of white on the wings; the breast seems more clouded with brown, and the spots are not of a triangular shape, but are rounded; however, there appears at first sight very little difference between the females of the two species’.

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Appendix 4 Status Blackburn et al. (2009) correctly quote Madge and Burn (1988) and Lever in Gibbons et al. (1993) as saying that the Mandarin Duck was then under threat of extinction in its native Asian range, and that the naturalised British population was of conservation significance: indeed, it was estimated that at that time the number of Mandarin in Britain outnumbered those in the whole of the Far East outside Japan. Much, however, had happened between 1988, 1993 and 2009. Following a reappraisal of the bird’s status in eastern Asia, by 2004 the Mandarin had been downgraded by the IUCN/ BirdLife International to a species of ‘Least Concern’, and the conservation value of the British population had become of less importance. BirdLife International’s 2012 assessment of the status of the Mandarin Duck is: ‘This species has an extremely large range and hence does not approach the threshold for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (extent of Occurrence 30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is very large [c. 65,000–66,000 mature individuals], and hence does not approach the threshold for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (10% in ten years or three generations or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.’ Previous evaluations have been: 2009: Least Concern 2008: Least Concern 2004: Least Concern 2000: Lower Risk/Least Concern 1996: Lower Risk/Near Threatened 1994: Lower Risk/Least Concern (but insufficient evidence) 1988: Near Threatened Sources: Groombridge 1993; IUCN/BirdLife International Red Lists of Threatened Animals, 1996–2012. It is worth noting that as long ago as 2001 Aix galericulata was not listed in Threatened Birds of Asia: the BirdLife International Red Data Book (BirdLife International: Cambridge, UK).

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BirdLife International (2012) estimates, based on ‘medium data quality’, that the resident/ breeding range of the Mandarin Duck in the Far East extends to some 1.91million sq kms and the non-breeding occurrence covers around 1.85million sq kms.

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Appendix 5 Nest-boxes The principal reasons for supplying nest-boxes for any species of hole-nesting bird are firstly to provide additional breeding sites for those species for whom natural nesting-sites are in short supply in their breeding habitat or which have to compete for such sites with other species, and secondly to provide ready access to nests for scientists studying the breeding biology of a particular species – an important factor in that species’ long-term conservation. ‘A well-designed and well-located nestbox’, write Shurtleff and Savage (1996: 215), ‘may be occupied the first year it is installed, or only after several years – and sometimes never – depending on local population abundance … If ducklings are successfully hatched, hens may make a lifelong commitment to that nestbox or that area where they were hatched. To capitalize on the homing character of successfully breeding females, participants should continue and even expand the program for as long as possible.’ Boxes that remain unused for more than a couple of years should be relocated or reoriented. As Shurtleff and Savage (1996: 220) say, ‘Nest location is largely a matter of trial and error.’ Clearly, the habitat and individual site where a nest-box is placed are of prime importance; if these are unsuitable, the nest-box, however inviting, will be ignored. The main requirements are the existence of cover for the nesting female and her young and an adequate supply of food for her and her ducklings; scattering food nearby may help to attract females. Ideally, nestboxes should be placed as near as possible to fresh water, and never more than 1.5km from it. Boxes should be hung vertically and securely on a tree-trunk or post with the bottom of the box between 1m and 7m above ground level: the nearer to the ground, the easier it is to install and inspect the box, but the more likely it is to be disturbed by human activity or predators. Ideally, the entry hole should be clearly visible to the female from the nearest water-body, and branches and other vegetation that prevent easy access to the box should be removed annually prior to the start of the breeding season. Importantly, boxes should be sited in such a way that early morning sunlight does not shine directly into the entry hole; females usually lay their eggs early in the morning, and sunlight shining directly into the box may give her the impression that it is not well concealed; boxes with wide cracks or fissures that admit the light may be unoccupied. Nest-boxes should be serviced biannually; a month before nest prospecting begins, detritus should be removed and old pine (in preference to fir) shavings or sawdust replaced to a depth of between 1cm and 10cm, and cracks and any other damage repaired; in late summer or early autumn, after the breeding season, boxes should be checked again for use by Mandarin, and egg-shells and membranes counted. Cleaning boxes at this time is unnecessary, as detritus will only accrue during the winter period. When between 40% and 50% of boxes in any area are used, further boxes can be erected. The preferred time to inspect a nest-box is in the early morning or late afternoon, when the female is most likely to be away feeding or preparing to leave the nest. Unless the female is to be captured (e.g. for ringing or the extraction of DNA), she should be allowed to depart as naturally as possible; a scratch or tap on the tree trunk or pole will give the impression of a natural predator. If nest-boxes are inspected with care, only about 3% of females will desert the nest, and the nearer the eggs are to hatching the lower the rate of desertion is likely to be (Shurtleff & Savage 1996).

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To deter predators, it is important to maintain the size of the entry hole, which on wooden (and even plastic) boxes in the UK can easily be enlarged, especially by Grey Squirrels Sciurus carolinensis, Pine Martens Martes martes and American Mink Neovison vison; this can be prevented by fixing a metal ‘baffle’ around the hole. Ideally, the hole should be elliptical in shape, measure 7cm high and 10cm wide, and should be placed no less than 50cm from the bottom of the box. For pole-mounted boxes, an umbrella-shaped plastic or metal guard (fixed at least 1m from the ground to prevent circumvention by jumping) is an effective deterrent against terrestrial predators. For tree-mounted boxes, the trunk can be encircled by a wide band of flexible sheet-metal at least 1m wide and with the bottom a minimum of 1m from ground level. The tree should be sufficiently isolated from its neighbours to prevent predators from jumping to the nest-box from neighbouring trees. Perhaps the greatest protection of all, as Shurtleff and Savage (1996) point out, is to locate the nest-box near human habitation, where predators fear to venture whereas Mandarin seem to be more inured to the presence of people. The best man-made nest-boxes replicate as nearly as possible the attributes of a natural hole or cavity, with a relatively small entry hole on the side such as might, in the UK, be made by a Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker D. minor or Green Woodpecker Picus viridis, and by Grey Squirrels as dens. Boxes need to be sufficiently large and deep to enable the brooding female and her eggs and, eventually her ducklings, to be hidden in darkness below the entry hole. If the box is made of plastic or smooth wood, the interior below the hole should be grooved horizontally or covered with some material to act as a ‘ladder’ for ducklings when ready to leave the nest. Shurtleff and Savage (1996) describe four basic types of nesting-boxes for Mandarin (and Wood Ducks), which are usually made from wood, sheet-metal or plastic; (a) top-opening, (b) bottom-opening, (c) front-opening and (d) side-opening: all types and materials seem to have much the same attractions to a nest-seeking female, and all have advantages and disadvantages to the human researcher. Horizontal boxes can also be used successfully. Top-opening nest-boxes are those most frequently used, and are cheaply and easily constructed from readily available material. Top-opening boxes of any material are the best for removing a brooding female without undue disturbance. Wooden boxes have a more natural appearance than either metal or plastic ones, and are thus more aesthetically appealing. On the other hand, they are comparatively heavy, typically weighing between 7kg and 10kg, and in places with inquisitive cattle and many people – necessitating erection well above ground level – can be both laborious and even dangerous to install, and inspection and maintenance is more difficult and time-consuming. Wooden boxes are more liable to crack from exposure to the sun and wind, and to rot from damp conditions; they can also be damaged by squirrels and woodpeckers, and thus require more maintenance than either sheet-metal or plastic boxes. Top-opening sheet-metal boxes are far more predator-proof than either plastic or wooden boxes, are less than half the weight of a wooden box and are virtually maintenance-free. They are good for removing a brooding female. On the other hand, sheet-metal boxes are less easy for the uninitiated to construct and are less attractive in appearance. Shurtleff and Savage (1996) also report success using 20cm-diameter and 25cm-diameter PVC piping for the main body of a top-opening nest-box and wood for the top and bottom sections. Bottom-opening boxes made from two 20 litre plastic paint or oil drums have been used successfully; the lower drum can be quickly and easily removed for cleaning and refurbishment, and permits the researcher to count, weigh, measure and photograph eggs and newly hatched ducklings. Such boxes can be made very cheaply, are easy to clean with a wire brush, weigh barely 2kg, and require a minimum of maintenance. Squirrels generally ignore plastic (and sheet-metal boxes), perhaps because both emit a noise when touched. Even when painted a

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Appendix 5

neutral colour, plastic boxes are less aesthetically pleasing than wooden boxes. Plastic boxes, more so than wood or, surprisingly, sheet-metal ones, are more susceptible to internal heat build-up if exposed to direct sunlight for lengthy periods, which can cause females to desert and embryonic death. Until its manufacture ceased in the late 1980s, one of the best commercially produced bottom-opening plastic nest-boxes was the Tom Tubbs box, one of which was generously presented to me by Lawton Shurtleff; shaped like an acorn and made from heavy-duty brown plastic, the Tom Tubbs box stands around 50cm high, and is more durable, more natural-looking and easier to maintain than drum-made boxes; the Tom Tubbs has screw threads moulded into the top and bottom sections, allowing the bottom third to be easily detached. However, the Tom Tubbs box can, like drum boxes, experience an unacceptable build-up of heat if exposed to direct sunlight for lengthy periods. Unfortunately, I have so far (to 2012) had no success with my Tom Tubbs box; although, frustratingly, female Mandarin have sometimes been observed perching on the top of the box and leaning down to peer into the entrance hole, it has so far proved impossible to deter Eurasian Jackdaws Corvus monedula from commandeering the boxes before the Mandarin are ready to nest1. A hybrid form of high-level nest-box has a deep moulded plastic nest-cup that fits securely inside the open bottom of this otherwise all-wooden box. At the time of installation, the plastic nest-cup can be filled with fresh shavings or sawdust, quick-locked to an adaptor on a 2–3m long pole and slotted into place; a twist of the pole locks the nest-cup in place, and a reverse twist unlocks the pole from the cup. Front-opening plastic nest-boxes, not dissimilar to the Tom Tubbs box and introduced in 1988, are of double-walled heat-resistant construction. Like a bottom-opening box they are, however, unsuitable for handling a brooding female. Finally, top-opening wooden nest-boxes with a side-opening access door are especially useful for research purposes. A 15cm-diameter hole cut 10cm above the bottom of the box is covered by a 10cm-diameter plywood door hinged at the bottom. This hybrid box has easy access through the top for catching and ringing brooding adults, while from the side-opening door eggs and ducklings can easily be removed for weighing and measuring, and the broken egg-shells and membranes can be assessed: removing old nesting material and replacing it with new is more easily accomplished than when working in the dark from the top.

Note 1. An effective (and legal) way of preventing Jackdaws from rearing their young in a potential Mandarin Duck nest site is to destroy the former’s clutch as soon as possible after laying, leaving the broken eggs in the nest; this will prevent the Jackdaw from simply laying a replacement clutch, as would happen if the eggs were removed from the nest. (This action (‘by approved persons’, e.g. landowners and occupiers) is specifically permitted under Part II of Schedule 2 (Sections 2, 3 and 22) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (‘but not in Scotland on Sundays or Christmas Day’ [!])). A day or so after their destruction, the Jackdaw eggs and nest can be removed, and a replacement nest for Mandarin prepared.

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Appendix 6 Trapping and Ringing Ringing (known in North America as banding) is a useful tool for biologists researching a species’ population dynamics and migration patterns, and it can provide invaluable information of conservation significance. It is widely used throughout the world for numerous species. In the Mandarin’s native range in the Far East, Japan is pre-eminent in its ringing programme, which is coordinated by the Wild Bird Society of Japan – the country’s leading ornithological NGO. Such programmes involve principally game-bird species, and until relatively recently have not included the officially protected Mandarin (Shurtleff & Savage 1996). Although the ringing of Mandarin in Japan (and in other range states) in the Far East is still in its infancy, if and when the practice becomes fully and widely implemented, it should yield data of conservation importance. Similarly, ringing Mandarin in the UK and elsewhere throughout its naturalised range is likely to provide useful details of the species’ demography and patterns of dispersal. As described in Appendix 5, in spring female Mandarin can be captured for ringing while brooding inside nest-boxes. Prior to removing a female from her nest, the entry/exit hole should be temporarily covered to prevent her escape. From the darkened nest, the female can then usually be easily and gently lifted from her eggs with a minimum of disturbance, and after ringing carefully replaced or released; if the latter, she will normally return to the nest within an hour or so. (It is, of course, essential to remove the cover from the hole immediately after ringing.) When the female is away from the nest, for feeding or to ‘stretch her legs’, recently hatched ducklings (less than 24 hours old) can be web-tagged through a web between the toes, using tags designed primarily for fin-tagging fish. Ringing and web-tagging adult female Mandarin and ducklings is useful in determining the increase or decrease in the number of females returning to the same nest in the following spring. Provided they survive the winter, up to 90% of females that have reared ducklings successfully will return to the same nest – or to one in the immediate vicinity – in the succeeding spring. If the number of ringed females returning to a sufficiently wide area for a long enough period of time exceeds 50% of the number of breeding females, it can be assumed that the number of breeding females is increasing, whereas if the number of returning ringed females falls below 50%, it is likely that the species is in decline (Shurtleff & Savage 1996). In late summer and autumn (in the Far East before the birds begin to migrate), Mandarin ducks, drakes and young are best ringed by trapping: box-traps can be made in a variety of shapes and sizes, using chicken-wire or small-mesh aviary-wire, and are usually baited with grain or nuts to entice the birds to enter them. Some traps (e.g. those used by Andy Davies and Bert Winchester, a retired Crown Estate employee, in Windsor Great Park in the 1980s; see Chapter 9) are large enough to allow several people to stand up in them and catch the birds in hand-held nets: others are small enough to be carried by hand. Shurtleff and Savage (1996) described a Y-shaped trap which is both easy and cheap to make and highly effective in catching and keeping up to 40 birds at a time. Furthermore, the captured birds can be easily removed for ringing and with the minimum amount of stress. As with most other forms of box-trap, birds are enticed to enter via tapering tunnel-shaped passages in the lateral wings of the Y. Each passage is sufficiently large at the entry end to allow a duck easy access but small enough at the exit end, which lies about 15cm inside the trap, to

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Appendix 5

discourage the bird from attempting to escape. At the hub of the Y-trap is a centrally located feeding station, into which the birds are guided by the three lateral wings or holding pens. Because of the small size of the central hub, the bait should be placed near its centre; if it is too close to the end of the tunnel, the bird can simply stretch out its neck to reach it without ever leaving the tunnel. Once in the hub, the ducks realise they are trapped and begin to seek escape holes, which are large openings in the tunnels leading into the wings. The design of the Y-trap ensures that when a duck manages to leave one of the three wings or holding pens it finds itself back in the central hub, from which it can easily pass through the large end of the tunnel into one of the other wings; so efficient is the design that no bird remains inside the central hub for more than a few minutes before ‘escaping’ into another of the lateral wings. Each of the three lateral wings can be detached from the central hub so that the ducks can easily be removed for ringing. Prior to removal, the open end of the wing and the open side of the hub should be covered; all birds in the wing can then be easily hand-caught and ringed with the minimum of agitation before release. Unlike larger box-traps that are normally made from chicken-wire or small-mesh aviarywire fixed to a wooden frame, the Y-trap is better made from more rigid heavy-gauge rabbit-wire with a 5mm mesh, which makes the trap self-supporting and avoids the need for any frame. Tunnels should be around 20cm wide at the large end, 15cm in length, and some 10cm in diameter at the small end. Tunnels can be oval, round, square or rectangular. Box-traps of all designs demand careful monitoring and regular inspection at least twice a day – once in late morning to catch the morning feeders and again in the late evening to catch the afternoon feeders – so that captured birds suffer the minimum of stress. The problem of songbirds entering the trap in search of food can be mitigated by cutting a hole in the upper end of each wing of the trap that is large enough to allow the small birds to escape but not so narrow that a duck’s head will become trapped. In late summer and autumn, traps should not be put in place until all females have finally left the nests and all ducklings in the area are old enough to care for themselves. Mandarin feed on land more than most other species of duck, so traps can be set on land near water or on floating ‘islands’ anchored in the water. All traps should be removed from the field at the end of the trapping season, normally in late autumn or early winter. Since Mandarin in their native range in the Far East (Japan, China, Russia and North and South Korea) are not considered as game-birds and are thus not legally shot, they are not included in any national governmental ringing programmes. Although an effective wildfowl ringing programme is normally dependent on rings recovered and handed in to the ringing authority by shooters, rings can also be recovered from birds killed by natural causes, by accidents (such as collision with overhead wires) or by poachers, or from males and females caught in box-traps or females caught in nest-boxes. The results can be intriguing. ‘For example’, say Shurtleff and Savage (1996: 223): hens banded in the spring on their nests in Russia may later be trapped and identified in Japan. Those same banded hens may be found on their nests back in Russia in the following spring. Or a hen box-trapped and banded in the winter in South Korea may be found nesting in northern China. A banded drake may be shot by a poacher in Japan, and the band recovered and reported. The opportunities are endless and exciting, and the knowledge gained can be of tremendous value in the effort to learn more about conserving the Mandarin in its native lands.

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Appendix 7 The Wood Duck Aix sponsa No account of the Mandarin Duck would be complete without mentioning the only other species in the genus Aix, the North American Wood Duck A. sponsa1, formerly known as the Summer Duck and still referred to by aviculturists as the Carolina Duck. This species has been well served by the magisterial monograph by Bellrose and Holm (1994), supplemented by a much shorter companion volume (McCabe 1994). Some 8,000km from the nearest natural range of the Mandarin Duck in Japan, that of the Wood Duck in North America represents one of the most remarkable disjunctions in the entire animal kingdom for a genus containing only two species. The Wood Duck is the most abundant species of breeding wildfowl between 30ºN and 43ºN in North America, where its breeding range is divided into two principal regions; one includes southern British Columbia, north-western Montana, the Pacific north-west and California; the other stretches from the Great Plains east to the Atlantic coast, and from southern Canada east of Alberta south to the Gulf coast states. Wood Ducks also nest in discrete populations in the Great Plains states near the main breeding range, including New Mexico. Wood Duck have nested in these areas since pre-settlement times, probably (and certainly in the 18th and 19th centuries east of the Mississippi River) in huge numbers (Phillips 1925), due to the volume of mature and dead timber in the then undisturbed waters in the pristine native deciduous woodland. Occasional records, mostly in winter, occur for Wood Ducks in Mexico (Williams 1987), mainly in Jalisco, Guerrero and Distrito Federal (AOU 1998), but no breeding in Mexico has been recorded. Outside the continental United States, a small breeding population of Wood Ducks occurs in Cuba (Barbour 1943) mainly in shady streams and lagoons in the west, e.g. Laguna de la Deseada in Pinar del Río (Bond 1979). Bond (1979) and the AOU (1998) refer to records of vagrants in the Bahamas (Grand Bahama, New Providence, Eleuthera), Bermuda, Jamaica, Cayman Islands (Little Cayman), Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles (Saba) and the Azores. Over much of its range, the Wood Duck breeds primarily in densely populated regions, where its habit of nesting in tree-holes (often those formed by Pileated Woodpeckers Dryocopus pileatus) and natural cavities and, to a lesser extent, in artificial nest-boxes, brings it into conflict with such native birds as the Black-bellied Whistling Duck Dendrocygna autumnalis, Bufflehead Bucephala albeola, Common Goldeneye B. clangula, Barrow’s Goldeneye B. islandica, Hooded Merganser Lophodytes cucullatus, Common Merganser Mergus merganser, and even introduced European Starlings Sturnus vulgaris (see Lever 1987, 2005) (with all of which it competes advantageously), and in California with the introduced Mandarin Duck. Mammalian competitors (and predators) include Common Racoons Procyon lotor, Virginia Opossums Didelphis virginiana, Western Grey Squirrels Sciurus griseus, and Eastern Grey Squirrels S. carolinensis. No other species of wildfowl in North America exploits such a wide range of habitats as the Wood Duck, which is apparently equally at home breeding in inland waters near woodland, such as swamps, flooded forest, ponds, lakes, and marshes, and along slowly flowing rivers and streams. It winters mainly on freshwater marshes, ponds, streams and even occasionally on brackish marshes and estuaries (AOU 1998), as well as artificially constructed ditches and farm ponds, and beaver ponds and bogs.

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Wood Ducks in the south of their breeding range, where the breeding season is relatively long and migration distances either short or absent, are the only species of North American wildfowl that habitually raises two broods a year. Like the Mandarin, Wood Ducks also breed in artificial nest-boxes, although they are, except where both species live together, perhaps less prone to adopting boxes than Mandarin. Again like the Mandarin, Wood Duck construct no real nest, merely scraping whatever is already in the selected hole or box into a shallow depression. Such hollows may remain for several days or even a fortnight before the first egg is laid, and some prepared nests remain unused. As each egg is laid, the female covers it with detritus from within the nest, until eventually a slight mound is formed. In Cuba, where their nests are predated by the introduced Small Indian Mongoose Herpestes auropunctatus (see Lever 1985), Wood Ducks also breed in palm ‘stubs’ (stumps) (Bond 1979: 49). Nest predators of Wood Duck in North America include Apache Fox Squirrels S. apache, Racoons, American Mink Neovison vison, Rat Snakes Elaphe obsoleta and Bull Snakes Pituophis melanoleucus. Northern Flickers Colaptes auratus and Red-headed Woodpeckers Melanerpes erythrocephalus puncture Wood Duck eggs. North of 37ºN the Racoon is the Wood Duck’s main nesting predator; south of this line the Racoon and the Rat Snake share this role. Wood Duck eggs and young face many dangers between the early development of the embryo and fledging. In the former, these include infertility and non-term embryos and in the latter parasites, intraspecific conflict, conspecific injuries and fatalities, diseases, direct predation and inclement weather. Female Wood Duck lead their offspring to shelter when danger threatens, divert the attention of potential predators by feigning injury and provide their young with warmth and protection. The first fledged juvenile Wood Ducks normally take to the air during mid-summer, and within a few weeks small juvenile flocks of both sexes begin to form, whereas at least some adult flocks are single-sexed. As late summer approaches, first adult males and later females join the juvenile flocks preparing to migrate in collective convolancy. Shurtleff (in Shurtleff & Savage 1996) emphasises the importance of providing artificial nest-boxes for both Wood Ducks and Mandarin Ducks. These not only provide potentially safe and additional nesting-sites in localities where natural ones are in short supply or even absent, but also help to facilitate the work of biologists researching the ecology of these species. In the United States, most research on migratory species that involves invasive procedures (e.g. ringing (banding) females on the nest, web-tagging ducklings, weighing and measuring eggs) requires a federal, and usually a state, permit. In spite of these restrictions, the nesting habits of Wood Duck in North America have been widely studied for many years, whereas those of the Mandarin Duck in its native range are still in their infancy. Much remains to be discovered with regard to both species, and the provision of nest-boxes can play an important role in finding out more about their ecology and biology. In excess of 100,000 nest-boxes in North America are estimated to add around 150,000 Wood Duck annually to the continent’s population; in some places these boxes are largely provided by private individuals, while in others the lead is taken by state authorities; in California, for example, the California Wildfowl Association, in conjunction with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Fish and Game Department, has played an important role in the provision of nest-boxes. This programme has been repeated in other parts of North America, and with an increasing interest in nature conservation and the continuing decrease in the availability of natural nesting-sites as a consequence of widespread deforestation (followed in some places with replanting of unsuitable but commercially profitable conifers), it is important that the provision of nest-boxes2 for Wood Ducks in North America, and their more widespread

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adoption for Mandarin Ducks in the Far East, continues. Leopold (1951) and Hawkins (1984) were probably the first people to erect nest-boxes for Wood Ducks in the United States, when in 1943 they installed three on the former’s property on a 40m-high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River near Burlington, Iowa. Within a few years, Leopold had more than 20 occupied boxes, which he and his family monitored until his death in 1989, noting the date that each female arrived and selected a nest-box, the dates of egg-laying and the duration of incubation, until the time, around 45 days later, when she led her ducklings down the bluff, across the intervening railway track and on to the Mississippi. Wood Duck normally roost at night on waters with plenty of waterside cover. During breeding, most pairs roost together but as the post-breeding season approaches larger roosting assemblies are formed, from which Wood Duck disperse for up to 8km during the day to feed on nearby wetlands. Immediately before or after the onset of the autumn migration, many such roosts in the central and southern portions of the eastern United States may consist of over 1,000 individuals with densities in excess of 500 birds per hectare of water (Hein and Haugen 1966; Hester & Dermid 1973). The benefits derived from roost-formation include, most importantly, protection and survival, and the regulation of local population densities, the re-establishment and defence of pair-bonds, and the teaching of social and foraging skills to juveniles. Like Mandarin, Wood Ducks are omnivorous and opportunistic foragers, their diet being influenced by the abundance and availability of local food resources. In the water, Wood Duck feed mainly on plant material, aquatic insects, small fish, crayfish Decapoda and snails Gastropoda, and on land forage for nuts, terrestrial insects, seeds, fruit, the leaves of some plants and corn, according to season (Brakhage 1966; Bellrose 1976; Bateman 1977; Milbert 1984). In autumn and winter, nuts are the Wood Duck’s (and Mandarin’s) preferred food: ‘Acorns are the favored foods of more wood ducks in more places than any other plant food’ (Bellrose 1976: 194). Where acorns are scarce, the seeds of Bald Cypress Taxodium distichum and T. ascendens, Bullrush Scirpus lacustris or Common Rush Juncus effusus, hickory Carya spp., Arrow Arum Peltandra virginica and bur-reed Sparganium spp. are favoured alternatives. Probably more than any other species of wildfowl (apart from the Mandarin), Wood Duck prefer to dabble for food on the surface of the water, though they are able and willing to up-end for food lying in shallow water and, perhaps more commonly than Mandarin, to dive for it in deeper – though not very deep – water. Wood Ducks are afflicted by a number of ectoparasites and endoparasites and by a wide variety of bacterial, fungal and viral infections. Parasitic infections include haematozoa, filarial worms, and helminths; bacterial infections are mainly botulism, avian cholera and salmonellosis; aspergillosis, caused by the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, is the most common fungal infection of Wood Duck and other wildfowl species; among viral infections to which Wood Duck are known to be susceptible are duck virus enteritis (DVE) and Newcastle disease. The dynamics of Wood Duck population is largely determined by successful fledging and post-fledging mortality, coupled with (mainly male) immigration and emigration. Annual recruitment and survival rates are governed by a number of variable factors, including alterations in habitat quality, weather and water-level fluctuations and losses due to shooting. Wood Duck drakes moult into their eclipse plumage earlier in the season than any other species of duck in North America, and are accordingly the first to return to their ‘normal’ breeding plumage in autumn and also the first to commence pair-formation. Edwards (1931–32), quoted by Bellrose and Holm (1994), noted how flightless Wood Duck ducklings use their wings to propel themselves while submerged to escape from danger. Adults are fast swimmers and, according to Bellrose and Holm (1994), are probably the fastest runners of all ducks.Wood Ducks also appear to be able to detect odours better than most ducks and other

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birds (Bang 1971), and have exceptionally large eyes that give them advantages in crepuscular or nocturnal conditions and may help them in flying in densely planted woodland. Wood Ducks have a longer tail than any other dabbling duck except for the Mandarin and Northern Pintail Anas acuta, which gives them great aerial manoeuvrability when flying in enclosed conditions. As described elsewhere, Wood Ducks and Mandarins have various behavioural and plumage characteristics that suggest a close relationship (Johnsgard 1978). The females of both species use incitement in mate-selection and initiate copulation by assuming a prone position on the water. Wood Duck are believed to be monogamous on an annual basis, though pair-bonds seldom survive from one season to the next. Although the males of the Wood Duck and the Mandarin are strikingly dimorphic, the females are extremely similar, with differences mainly in the degree of white encircling and behind the eyes. The almost total failure of these two closely related species to hybridise – though in captivity the Wood Duck has hybridised with 11 Anas spp. (Gray 1958; Gillham & Gillham 1996) – may be due to the apparent aberrant karyotype of the Mandarin (Yamashina 1952). Of all American wildfowl, the Wood Duck is the only species with both large migratory and non-migratory populations. Virtually all Wood Ducks breeding south of North Carolina, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas, are non-migratory. For around 150km north of that area, Wood Duck are semi-migratory, depending on the severity of the winter. North of the three states mentioned, Wood Duck are migratory and, like other ducks, they migrate mainly at night. Just as its behaviour and striking appearance led to a long history of the Mandarin Duck in the culture and folklore of China and Japan, so has the extraordinary and beautiful plumage of the Wood Duck given it an important role, since prehistoric times, in the lives and history of North American Indians. Reeves (1990) concluded that prehistoric Indians were familiar with Wood Ducks and revered them, especially in the Mississippi Valley. Representations of Wood Ducks were frequently carved by Indians on the bowls of ceremonial pipes or calumets. The use of Wood Duck decoration by Indians in historic times was noted by Wilson (1828: 315): ‘Among other gaudy feathers [with] which the Indians ornament the calumet or pipe of peace, the skin of the head and neck of the Summer Duck is frequently seen covering the stem.’ Abbott (1895: 249) considered that: ‘It is not strange that the wood duck should have strongly attracted the attention of the Indians. Its wondrous beauty naturally appealed to a savage people fond of personal decoration and bright colors. They carved the head of this duck in steatite [soapstone] as an ornamental smoking-pipe, and we find it also moulded in clay in the elaborate pottery of the mound-builders.’ The wonder and appreciation of the Wood Duck male’s beauty did not, apparently, prevent Indians from also regarding the species as a source of food. Parmalee (1957) found 45 Wood Duck bones from a midden at Cahokia (occupied between 1200 and 1500 AD) near East St Louis, Illinois, though these were much fewer in number than the bones of other wildfowl species. The Indians’ appreciation of Wood Ducks was clearly shared by early European colonists who, according to Phillips (1925), introduced them to Europe as early as the 17th century. Although the Wood Duck has failed to become widely and well established in the wild outside its native range, it remains today a greatly valued species in North America and, known as the Carolina Duck, a favourite among aviculturists worldwide.

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Notes 1. ‘L[atin]. sponsa bride (spondere to pledge). “Summer Duck” of Catesby [Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands] (1731); “Prettily applied to this lovely duck, as if the bird were arrayed for [a] bridal [wedding feast]” (Coues 1882) [Key to North American Birds] (Aix). (Jobling 2010: 363.) 2. See Appendix 5.

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Glossary Actinomycetes.

Mycelium-forming bacteria of the order Actinomycetales.

Alien species. See Introduced species. Allele (Allelomorph). One of two or more forms of a gene arising by mutation and occupying the same relative position (locus) on homologous chromosomes. Altricial. An animal whose young are born or hatched in an undeveloped state and require parental care and feeding. Autecology (Autoecology).

The ecological study of a particular species.

Benthic. On or near the bottom of a waterbody. BTO.

British Trust for Ornithology.

Calumet. North American Indian peace pipe. Canorous.

Musical, resonant or ringing.

Cathemeral. Describes a pattern of activity in which an animal is not strictly nocturnal, diurnal or crepuscular, but is irregularly active at any time of night or day according to prevailing conditions. Chromosome. DNA-histone (q.v.) protein thread, usually associated with RNA (q.v.), occurring in the nucleus of a cell. Cloaca.

The cavity in a bird’s body into which the alimentary, urinary and genital ducts open.

Conductance.

The degree to which a material acts as a conductor.

Convolancy.

The act of flying together.

Congeneric.

Belonging to the same genus as another. In invasion biology, also refers to two species originally from different parts of the world presently living sympatrically, e.g. Mandarin Ducks and Wood Ducks in the USA.

Crevicolous.

Living or breeding preferentially in holes or crevices.

Culmen. Ridge along the upper mandible (q.v.) from tip of bill to forehead. Cytology.

The branch of biology concerned with the structure and function of animal and plant cells.

Diluvial. Relating to floods. Dichromatic. Having two different kinds of colouring. Dimorphic. Having different forms of plumage, especially between the sexes. DNA. Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (Deoxyribonucleic Acid). Nucleic acid, which is the genetic material of organisms, its sequence of paired bases constituting the genetic code. Drey. Nest of a squirrel. Eclipse plumage. A phase during which the distinctive markings of a bird (especially that of a male duck) becomes obscured by the moulting of the breeding plumage, rendering it temporarily incapable of flight.

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Ectoparasite. A parasite that lives on the outer surface of a living organism. Endoparasite. A parasite that lives within a living organism. Ethology.

The study of the science of animal behaviour.

Eukaryotypa. Organism with cells that have a distinct nucleus. Exploitative competition. Competition between organisms using the same pool of resources, e.g. food or nesting-sites. Exotic species. See Introduced species. Fraction. Each of the portions into which a mixture can be separated according to a physical property (such as boiling point or solubility). Gamete. A mature single male or female germ cell which is able to unite within another of the opposite sex in sexual reproduction to form a zygote (q.v.). Genetic drift.

The random fluctuations of gene frequencies in a population such that the genes among offspring are not a perfectly representative sampling of the parental genes.

Glycolysis.

The breakdown of glucose by enzymes, releasing energy and pyruvic acid (q.v.).

Gonad. An organ that produces gametes (q.v.); a testis or an ovary. Herl. A barb or filament on a feather. Heterocyclic. A compound whose molecule contains a ring of atoms of at least two elements. Heterozygosity.

The presence of alleles (q.v.) at a particular gene locus.

Histone. One of a group of basic simple proteins with a high content of the amino acids arginine and lysine. Holarctic (Laurasia). North America, Europe and Asia. Homeotherm/Homoiotherm. An organism that maintains and regulates its body temperature at a constant level by its metabolic activity. Homologous. An organ of an animal is said to be homologous with that of another when both are believed to have the same evolutionary origin, though their functions may differ widely. Inbreeding depression. Decreased vigour in terms of growth, survival or fecundity, following one or more generations of inbreeding. Introduced species. A species moved by humans from its native range to a country outside that range. Also known as exotic or invasive species. Invasive species. See Introduced species. (An invasive species does not necessarily cause harm where it has been introduced.) Karyotype.

The entire chromosomal complement of an individual or cell, which can be observed during mitotic metaphase (q.v.).

Lentic. Still water. Leucistic. Of a whitish colour due to lack of pigmentation. Lipid. A fatty acid that is insoluble in water. Lore.

The surface on either side of a bird’s head between the eye and upper base of the bill or beak.

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Glossary

Lotic.

Flowing water.

Mandible. Specifically the lower jaw, but the term is also used to denote the two parts of the bill or beak, as upper and lower mandibles. Mantle.

Back, scapulars (q.v.) and wing-coverts (q.v.).

Mitotic metaphase. A phase in the process of nuclear division at which the chromosomes move about within the spindle (q.v.) during cell division until they eventually arrange themselves in the equatorial region. Mutualism. A positive interaction between two species to their mutual benefit or advantage. Matrix.

The substance between cells or in which structures are embedded.

Natatores. An order of birds adapted for swimming, including ducks, geese, swans and pelicans. Naturalise.

The establishment in the wild of an alien species in selfmaintaining and self-perpetuating numbers unsupported by man.

Neonate. A newly born (or hatched) young. Netsuke. Carved toggle-like Japanese ornament attached to a belt used to suspend personal possessions. Newcastle disease.

Acute and infectious disease which affects mainly the respiratory tract of birds and, on occasion, the nervous system. It is caused by a paravirus, and can be fatal.

NGO Non-governmental organisation. Notochord (chorda dorsalis). A flexible rod-like structure extending for most of the length of the body in members of the phylum Chordata; replaced in the subphylum Vertebrata by the vertebral column. Oligotrophic. Water poor in nutrient content and with a low primary productivity. Oxbow (Cut-off). A section of a river channel that no longer carries the main discharge. Pathogen. A bacterium, virus or other micro-organism capable of causing disease. Peptide. A compound consisting of two or more amino acids linked to a chain. Peregrine species. One that has established wild populations outside its natural range. Photoperiodism.

The response of an organism to changes in either the intensity of light or, more commonly, to the relative length of day.

Pipping.

To break the shell of an egg in hatching.

Precocial. An animal whose young are hatched or born in an advanced stage of development and are able to forage and care for themselves almost immediately. Primary. Outer flight feathers.

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Propagule pressure.

The extent to which an environment is exposed to the introduction of new organisms; the combination of the number of individuals and dispersal events involved in an introduction.

Protease. An enzyme that breaks down proteins and peptides (q.v.). Pseudomonad. A bacterium of a genus occurring typically in soil, leaf litter and other detritus. Pullus (plural Pulli). A young bird still in the downy stage. Pyrimidine.

Basic six-membered heterocyclic (q.v.) compound.

Pyruvic acid.

Three-carbon keto acid that occupies a central position in cell metabolism.

Ramsar [convention]. International Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (signed in Ramsar, Iran 1971). Remiges (singular Remex). Primary and secondary flight feathers. Ringing. Placing a (sometimes coloured) plastic or metal ring around a bird’s leg to aid subsequent identification. (Referred to as ‘banding’ in North America). RNA (Ribonucleic Acid). Nucleic acid characterised by the presence of D-ribose and the pyrimidine (q.v.) base uracil. Safe. Collective term for ducks on land. Scapular. Shoulder, above the area where the wing is attached to the body. Sister species.

Two species that are each other’s nearest relatives, i.e. which are more closely related to each other than to any other species.

Speculum. Well-defined patch of coloured feathers, often iridescent, occurring on the secondaries or secondary coverts of many Anatidae, especially Anas species (to which the Mandarin Duck was formerly assigned). Spindle. Set of microtubular fibres that appear to move the chromosome of eukaryotypes (q.v.). Steatite.

The mineral talc occurring in consolidated form, especially as soapstone.

Stochastic. Having a random probability distribution or pattern that can be analysed statistically but not precisely predicted. Stook. A group of sheaves of grain stood on end in a field after harvesting. Tarsus.

The shank of the leg.

Tertiary.

The first period of the Cenozoic Era, which began 65 million years ago and lasted for 63.2 million years.

Vernal. Ephemeral waters and wetlands that dry out at certain times of the year. Wing-coverts.

Feathers that cover the base of a main wing-feather.

Zygote. A cell resulting from the fusion of two gametes (q.v.).

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index Aberdeenshire 95–6

byobu 58

African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) 17–18, 18, 126

Carrion crows 131

Aldrovandi, Ulisse 61

Cats 30, 131

American Bullfrogs 120

Changbai Shan Nature Reserve 23

Amur basin 33, 51

Chernaya River 36

Anglesey 100

Cheshire 84–6

Argyllshire 93–4

China 21–9, 47–9, 51, 53

Arsamasovka River 36–7

China Coastal Waterbird Census (CCWC) 49

art 57–9

Cleveland 87

Ascot Place Lake 69

clutch size 39, 131, 134, 135

Ashi Lake 29–30

Confucius 55

Asian Changbai mountain range 42

conservation 47–52

Australia 127

conspecific brood parasitism (cbp) 135–7

Austria 107

Convention on Biological Diversity 18

avian predators 30, 34, 39, 120

Coots 132

Avon 79

Cotswolds 77

Avvakumovka River 36

County Down 100–1, 103

Azores 123

courtship behaviour 120–1, 128–30

catching ducks 24

Croatia 124 Balearic Islands 123

Cumbria 87–8

bamboo 30

Czech Republic 124

Bangladesh 45 Bedfordshire 72

Decker, Sir Matthew 17, 61

Belarus 123

deforestation 47–8, 50, 52

Belgium 108

DEFRA 88–90

Berkshire 68, 69–70

Delacour, Jean 63–4

Bern Convention 18

Denbighshire 99

Birds Korea Blueprint 42–3

Denmark 124

Bobcats 120

Derbyshire 81–2

Bolschekhekhtsirskij State Reserve 38

Devon 79–80

Botswana 124

Dinghu Mountain 25

Breeding Atlas 104, 105

Dongting Lakes 24–5

breeding biology 93, 96, 130–9

Dorset 76–7

bridal robes 58

ducklings 39, 131–2

Bristol 79

dumping 131

Brown, Lancelot ‘Capability’ 17 Buckinghamshire 71–2

East Asian/Australasian Flyway 43

Buddha 54

EBCC Atlas 105

Bulgaria 124

Edwards, George 61–2

Burma 45

eggs

burping 129

characteristics 137–9

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clutch size 39, 131, 134, 135

Hampshire 72–3

laying 39, 131, 137

Herefordshire 79

loss of 137

Hertfordshire 72

Emperor Shomu 58

Highland District 95

England 60–6, 67–91

Historical Atlas 105

Essex 74

Hokkaido 28, 31

EU Birds Directive 18

Holmwood 92

Ezra, Alfred 64

Hong Kong 45

Far East 21–46, 47–52

Hong Kong Bird Watching Society (HKBWS) 49

see also specific countries

Honshu 50

Faroe Islands 124

Huang He (Yellow) River 22, 24

fidelity 54

Hungary 125

Finland 124 flight 62–3

Iceland 125

food/diet 40, 62–3, 101–3, 141–2

incomplete clutches 136

Forest of Dean 62–3, 77–9, 104

incubation 39, 131, 138

Forestry Commission 88

India 45

forests 23–4, 30, 37–8, 47–8, 88–91, 103

introduction

Four Rivers Project 43

in England 60–6

France 108–9

failure 67, 127

furosode 58

success 67 Israel 125

genetics 68, 133

Italy 125

Germany 109–12 Gloucestershire 77–9

Jackdaws 134

Goldeneye 18–19, 98

Japan 28–32, 49–51, 53, 54

Goshawks 132

Japanese Marten 30

Grass Snakes 39 Greater Manchester 84

kacho-ga 58

Grey Heron 132

Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve 37

grunt-whistle 129

Kent 73–4

Gwent 99–100

Khabarovsk Territory 33, 34

Gwynedd 100

Kievka River 34–5, 36 Kolomievka River 36

habitat

Korea see North and South Korea

in China 22, 24–5

K’ung Fu-tse 55

in Japan 29–30

Kuril Islands 28

in Korea 43

kyoka 58

loss/devastation of 47, 51–2 in Northern Ireland 101

Laidlay, J. Christie 92

in Russia 33, 35, 40

Lancashire 83–4

haiku 56–7, 58

Largemouth Bass 120

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Index

Latham, John 62

nest-boxes 18–19, 119, 130, 136

Leclerc, George-Louis 62

nesting sites 130

legend 54

and clutch size 134

Leicestershire 81

competition for 135

literature 55–7

in Japan 29

London 71

in Russia 33, 38–9

long-distance dispersal flights 102

in Scotland 92

Luxembourg 125

studies of 134–5

Magpies 131

nests 39, 130, 134–5

Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Program 25

The Netherlands 113–14

Margaritovka River 36

New Zealand 127

marital loyalty 54

noble robes 57–8

Mencius 55

Norfolk 75

Meng Chiao 55

North and South Korea 28–9, 41–5, 51

Meng-tse 55

Northern Ireland 100–5

Middlesex 71

North Merseyside 83–4

migration

Northumberland 86–7

abandonment of in Britain 68

Norway 114

in United States 119

New Atlas 105

from China 22–3, 28–9 from Russia 22–3, 28–9

Oshidori festival 54

East Asian/Australasian Flyway 43

Otter 34, 39

to Japan 28 from Korea 28–9

pairing 53–4

from Russia 40 to Russia 38

Partnership for the East Asian/Australasian Flyway (EAAFP) 43

of Scottish birds 98

Pine Martens 98, 132

Migration Atlas 105

Pingnan 23–4

military robes 57–8

Po-Chü 56

Ming Dynasty 57

Poland 114–15

Mink 33–4, 39, 98, 120, 132

Polecats 39

mock-preening 129

population

Monaco 113

in Britain 105

Mongolia 45

in China 25

Mongolian Oak 38

in Japan 29

Monken Handley 64

in North and South Korea 42, 44

Montgomeryshire 99

in Northern Ireland 101

Morocco 125

in Russia 34–6, 41

moulting 39, 139

in Scotland 93, 96, 98

Muscovy duck 17

in Wales 100 Powys 99

Nepal 45

Poyang Lake 24

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predators 30, 33–4, 39–40, 98, 120, 131–2

Tay River 92

preening, mutual 53

Tens Rule 19–20

Primorskiy Kray 33, 34, 36

Thailand 45 Tollymore Forest Park 100–1

Raccoons 120

Tsao Chung 57

Racoon Dog 30, 33–4, 39

Tu Fu 55

Rats 132 Red Fox 30, 120, 131–2

Ukraine 126

relocation 52

United States 118–22

rice harvest 29

Ussuriland 34, 38

ringing of birds 50 Ring-tailed Cats 120

Vietnam 45

robes 57–8

Virginian Opossums 120

Romania 125

Virginia Water 70

Russia 33–41, 51, 52, 125 waka-e 58 Sakhalin 28, 39–40

Walcot Hall 64–5

Sanjiang Plain 22–3

Wales 99–100

Scaly-sided Merganser 37

Warwickshire 80–1

Scotland 92–8

Weasels 30, 34, 132

screens 58

West Midlands 80–1

Shimna Valley 100–3

Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) 89–90

shooting 31, 34, 37, 40, 47

Wiltshire 75–6

Sikhote-Alin’ 34–5, 37

Windsor Great Park 62–3, 64, 68–9, 70, 104

Slovakia 115

Winter Atlas 104

Slovenia 126

Wirral 84–6

Sonjo 54

Woburn Abbey 62–3

South Africa 115

Wood Ducks 118–22, 132–3

Spain 115

woodpeckers 98

Staffordshire 80

Worcestershire 80

Stoats 30, 132

Wormald & McLean Game Farm 63

Stonewall Park 63

Wuyanlin 23–4

Suffolk 74–5

Wuyuan 23–4

Surrey 70–1 Sussex 73

Yangtze River 22, 24

Sweden 126

Yasilkovka River 36

Switzerland 115–17

Yellow Sea Blueprint Region (YSBR) 42–3 Yorkshire 82–3

Tahiti 127

Yosa Buson 56

Taiwan 45

Yuan Dynasty 57

192

Untitled-1 192

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