Floating in the Maguri-Motapung beel (or wetland) in Assam’s Tinsukia district for over a week is the spectacular and rare Mandarin duck.The duck has since become the star of the wetland.

What is the Mandarin duck and why is it exciting?

=> Considered the most beautiful duck in the world, the Mandarin duck, or the (Aix galericulata) was first identified by Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist Carl Linnaeus in 1758.

=> The eBird website, a platform that documents birds world over, describes it as a “small-exotic looking bird” native to East Asia. “It’s very beautiful, with majestic colours and can be spotted from a distance,”

=> The eBird website describes the male as “very ornate with big orangey ‘sail fins’ on the back, streaked orangey cheeks, and a small red bill with a whitish tip” and the female with “narrow white spectacles on a shaggy grey head, bold pale dappled spots along flanks, and pale bill tip.”

MAIN HIGHLIGHTS:

=> The migratory duck breeds in Russia, Korea, Japan and northeastern parts of China. It now has established populations in Western Europe and America too. In 2018, when a Mandarin duck was spotted in a pond in New York City’s Central Park, it created a flutter among local residents.

=> It was recorded in 1902 in Dibru river in the Rongagora area in Tinsukia

=> The duck, however, rarely visits India as it does not fall in its usual migratory route. There are only a handful of recorded sightings here.

=> According to ornithologist Dr Anwaruddin Choudhury, a former joint secretary of the forest department, while the duck is not a globally threatened species, spotting one is always considered significant because they only make “rare appearances.” Hatiboruah said it was a “historical sighting, especially because no one can say when we will see it again.”