A Bufflehead is staying in Barendrecht, the Netherlands for many years…

The bird arrived in his first winter plumage in Barendrecht (a village nearby Rotterdam) in November 2004. Of course all twitchers from the Netherlands visited this bird as soon as possible. Nowadays (February 2018) this bird is still there! Only during the summer the bird is disappearing for a few weeks, but soon the duck will be back on the same ditch every end of the summer. Year after year!


Place to be...

Honestly this bird is a beautiful duck, but I can’t believe this bird is really a rarity. I’m afraid this Bufflehead is escaped from captivity. Why is this bird an ‘escape’?

When the bird arrived (November 2004) he was already tame. Really tame! When you threw some bread in the water this bird took the bread first. Recently (February 2018) I repeated this trick, and again the Bufflehead was the tamest of all ducks! Beside this, Bufflehead is a very popular bird in aviaries and these small ducks escape quite easily. Enough reasons to call this bird an ‘escape’.



So for sure this bird is an ‘escape’, but still it’s a very beautiful one. And by the way, this tame bird is giving good photo opportunities. So take it easy ;-).


The same Bufflehead (November 2004)

I’m glad I saw ‘real’ Buffleheads in Canada…