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Eurasian Wigeon

Eurasian Wigeon

Mareca penelope

Identify the Eurasian Wigeon by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Eurasian Wigeon is a common, compact dabbling duck of the Palearctic, the Old World counterpart of the American Wigeon. Breeding males have a chestnut head with a creamy-yellow forehead blaze and a grey body, while females are mottled brown. It breeds across northern Europe and Asia and winters south to western Europe, Africa and southern Asia. The male's mellow whistle is a characteristic sound of wetlands.

Did you know?

  • It grazes short turf like a goose.
  • In North America Eurasian Wigeons sometimes join flocks of American Wigeons, and the two can hybridise.

Voice

Sound

About the species

Identification

A medium-sized, short-necked duck with a small pale blue-grey bill with a dark tip and a white belly. The breeding male has a chestnut head with a yellowish forehead stripe, a grey body, a large white wing patch and green speculum, and a black-and-white rear. The female is mottled brown (reddish to greyish), with a dark speculum; the eclipse male resembles the female but is warmer and keeps the white wing patch.

Family

Anatidae

Size

Large (crow)

Colours

grey, brown, yellow, white

About the habitat

Shallow lakes, ponds, marshes and flooded meadows in the breeding season; outside it coastal bays, estuaries and wet grasslands.

Diet

Mainly plants – aquatic plants, algae and tender grasses grazed on shores and fields; also seeds and small invertebrates in the breeding season.

Behaviour

Very social outside the breeding season, forming large flocks that often mix with other ducks. It feeds by dabbling and by grazing like geese, and rests in rafts on open water. It snatches plant fragments from surfacing diving ducks and coots. It nests on the ground near water under cover. The male's call is a clear, whistled “whee-oo”, the female's a low growl.

Sources

Photo: Laitche, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eurasian wigeon in Sakai, Osaka, February 2016.jpg

Sound: Josef Hána, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hvizdak256.ogg

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions, CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_wigeon

See also