SPORTING ANSWERS
Baffled by bufflehead’s visit
WILDFOWL
Q Can you confirm the identity of the duck in my photograph? It turned up on a friend’s pond and was tame and approachable, suggesting that it had escaped from a collection.
A The duck in your photograph is a drake bufflehead in eclipse (non-breeding) plumage. The bufflehead is a small diving duck, closely related to the goldeneye, and widespread in North America, breeding mainly in Canada and wintering in the southern states of the US.
Though probable wild buffleheads have been recorded in western Europe (and Britain) on a number of occasions, the bird in your photograph is most likely an escapee from captivity.
Buffleheads are active, entertaining little ducks and a drake in full plumage is a very handsome bird, making them popular in duck collections. However, they are not easy to breed in captivity and require deep, preferably running, water, so they are not as common as they might otherwise be. DT
Dealing with gapeworm
GAMEKEEPING
Q I am a member of a small gun club in Ireland. We reared a few pheasants from poults during the summer. For various reasons, our pens were a little overstocked. That, coupled with some very wet weather during the poults’ first few weeks, led to
