Mandarin duck unlikely invader

THE collared dove, now firmly established as a native bird, bred for the first time in Ireland in 1959.

There were two nests that year; one in Galway, the other in Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery. Now there are reports from Glasnevin that mandarin ducks are nesting there. If so, it’s another ‘first’, at least south of the border with Northern Ireland.

’Mandarin’, a Portuguese word for a Chinese bureaucrat, is the name given to one of the world’s most important languages and the world’s most glamorous duck. This dumpy little bird has a longish tail, a big head and a thick neck. The drake has large orange ‘sails’ protruding from its back. The curvilinear lines and gorgeous plumage patterns are impossible to describe; however, Jim Wilson and Mark Carmody’s Freshwater Birds of Ireland has some fine photos of them.