Recently i have been working within a private estate in Berks - Ascott place.
It has a huge lake with not a lot of life but yesturday i discovered a group of Mandarin ducks. There were at least 5 males and twice as many females/juveniles, it was hard to tell if there were more as they were very flighty and that was the highest count i had. This is the first time i have seen this species feral and not in a collection. As they were within the grounds of a big country house i think they are proably left overs from a collection but they could all fly. There was also a pair of Egyption geese there.
Not especially rare really just interesting...
[QUOTE=gareth_blockley]Recently i have been working within a private estate in Berks - Ascott place.
It has a huge lake with not a lot of life but yesturday i discovered a group of Mandarin ducks. There were at least 5 males and twice as many females/juveniles, it was hard to tell if there were more as they were very flighty and that was the highest count i had. This is the first time i have seen this species feral and not in a collection. As they were within the grounds of a big country house i think they are proably left overs from a collection but they could all fly. There was also a pair of Egyption geese there.
Not especially rare really just interesting...[/QUOTE]
Berkshire (especially the Ascot/Windsor area) is the British stronghold. Your birds are as wild as any.