Weekly Bird Challenge: “Tufties”.

Tufted Ducks are especially cute. These little diving ducks are easily recognisable by their eponymous tuft and their bright yellow eyes. The nickname “Tufty” suits them very well.

There are just under 20,000 breeding pairs in the UK, who are joined each winter by another 110,000 of their relatives from Iceland and Northern Europe.

They can look pensive, in a stern sort of way, as they study you getting closer with your telephoto lens:

And they’re not scared to remind you just whose territory it is, if they think you’re getting too close:

Images ©Helen Bushe

All images were taken on a very dull day 10 years ago at Hogganfield Loch in Scotland, an inland stretch of water near Glasgow. They have been downloaded from my Flickr photostream and “refreshed” using LUMINAR4 (mainly to brighten them and to eradicate noise).

This post was inspired by Lisa’s latest Weekly Bird Challenge: Birds Hunted or Consumed by Humans.

Tufted Ducks are protected in UK by the Country and Wildlife Act 1981. In an ideal world, this should ensure that a Tufty would never appear in the sight of a hunting rifle………..

……..in an ideal world.