Pochard

The Pochard is a medium-sized diving duck. Males have a long dark bill with a grey band, red eyes, a bright reddish-brown head and neck, a black breast and tail and a pale grey body. Females can be confused with other species as they are brown with a greyish-brown body, with pale cheeks and a narrower grey bill-band.

Pochards feed mainly by diving or dabbling. They eat aquatic plants, seeds, snails, small fish and aquatic insects.

Pochards are most common in Britain during autumn and winter. They are migratory and large numbers of birds fly from eastern Europe and Russia to escape the bitterly cold weather there. Good places to see them in summer, are open lakes and gravel pits in lowland eastern England and Scotland, where there are breeding birds.

You are more likely to see them in winter across the whole of Britain, usually on larger lakes and even on estuaries.