At Loch Garten we have had a long term love affair with the goldeneye ducks. We don’t usually talk about our love life at work... but I think we can make an exception, just this once. First of all, let’s learn a little about their life history. Goldeneyes are a medium sized diving duck who eat mussels, insect larvae, small fish and plants.

Some goldeneyes summer in the Highlands of Scotland for breeding ( approximately 200 pairs) and many more ( approximately 27,000 birds) arrive in winter from further north, and stay in the highlands from August to March. The Males look black and white with a greenish black head and a circular white patch in front of the yellow eye. Females are smaller, and are mottled grey with a chocolate brown head. In flight, birds show a large area of white on the inner wing. They are a very unusual duck because they naturally nest in tree cavities. This means that they rely on woodlands that aren’t heavily managed and have lots of very old gnarly trees. The perfect cavities are found in trees where the big branches have fallen off, woodpeckers have created holes or in trees that are so old that they start to hollow out. They lay 8-11 medium sized turquoise coloured eggs inside these tree hollows and the female incubates them for around 28 to 32 days. The male abandons the female and her eggs about a week into incubation... charming!

Female goldeneye by Mike Langman (rspb-images.com)

Male goldeneye by Mike Langman (rspb-images.com)

Don’t worry though, the females are very self sufficient. She will take feathers out of her breast and cover the eggs with them like a fluffy duvet. This keeps the eggs warm for several hours, giving the female duck enough time to nip out and find some food. Something I didn’t know before writing this blog, is that brood parasitism is quite common with goldeneye ducks, as other bird species eggs are commonly found in goldeneye clutches. It is assumed that this is so common because they nest in dark cavities so the female ducks cannot always see the eggs that they are incubating. Goldeneyes can also lay their eggs in the nests of other females as well, so I think they give as much as they get. Once the little ducklings have hatched they spend about 24-36 hours in the nest (presumably at this point mummy duck is giving the duckling crew a pep talk to brace them for what is about to happen). Then, when the moment is right, the female flies gracefully out of the tree cavity and leads the defenceless ducklings to the nearest water source. As I mentioned before the ducklings are only one day old at this point so it is not so easy for them to get from the tree cavity (which is often more than 10ft up a tree) to the ground. They cannot fly, so they just take a leap of faith and fling themselves out of the tree and bounce onto the forest floor below. Seemingly unfazed by their leap of faith they then scurry along in a line following the female. The female leads them as quickly as possible to a natal pool, which is a shallow source of water where they can learn to feed and swim. At this stage the ducklings are very defenceless and vulnerable to predators. The longer the distance between the nest tree and the natal pool, the more vulnerable the chicks are to predation. And to make matters even worse, the female often abandons the chicks after they have been guided to the natal pool, so they are left to fend for themselves. This probably explains why they have such a large clutch size.

Goldeneye, named Gloria, and her ducklings crossing the road to Loch Garten in 2012 by Mike Hems.

 


Gloria and her eight ducklings on Loch Garten in 2012 by Mike Hems.

Sorry to put a bit of a downer on this blog. I know a lot of you were probably not expecting it to go this sour after the charm of the first couple of sentences. I think I can turn it around and leave you on a sweet note however, by telling you about the history of goldeneyes here at Abernethy. Goldeneye population has been declining in the UK because of loss of habitat and because so many of our woodlands are too heavily managed which results in few suitable nesting sites. During the 70’s there were reports of a few goldeneyes successfully nesting in Scotland, and this hadn’t been recorded for many decades.

The RSPB bought Loch Garten and Garten Woods between 1975-1983 and realised the potential they had to help. Much of the woodland on our reserve was originally planted, and so the trees are very uniform in age. There are large areas with trees that are all very tall and thin. This means that there are very few old gnarly trees which would contain useful nesting sites. We therefore devised a plan to use specially designed nest boxes to provide artificial nesting sites. We would much rather provide more natural nesting sites for them, but unfortunately trees grow very slowly and so it is going take a while for us to restructure our woodlands and create a more natural age structure which contains old gnarly trees. This is however the long term plan for our woodlands. With the help and expertise of Roy Dennis we put about 30 nest boxes around the lochs on our reserve. To our delight goldeneyes have been using the boxes and are still successfully breeding on the reserve to this day. We have put a small camera in one of the boxes and have been recording footage of the goldeneyes and their ducklings for several years. My favourite video shows the ducklings flinging themselves out of the box when they are one day old ... please feel free ask one of us to put that video on next time you’re in the centre! You can quite often see goldeneyes on the beautiful Loch Mallachie too.

If you’re still with me... thank you for reading my blog! This unfortunately will be my last one for the season as I have secured a job in Edinburgh and so have to leave the beautiful Abernethy (in case you didn’t guess from the blog title). I will be working for an environmental education organisation called Earth Calling, delivering after school wildlife clubs to local primary schools. Hopefully I will be able to inspire as many young people as possible to become interested in the natural world. I am very sad to be leaving this amazing place but will definitely be back. If you too have spent some time in Abernethy, you'll know about its magnetic pull which keeps you coming back again and again.

Bye for now,

Ellie Corsie (Visitor Experience Volunteer Intern).

Life sized male osprey painting by Ellie Corsie

P.S. I told many of our residential volunteers that I would include my osprey painting in a blog when I finally finished it, so here it is for anyone who is interested. Hope you all approve!