The fire duck, or red duck, is a relative of the sheath and is in the duck family. From a variety of photos, she is remembered for her bright red plumage, which is able to “burn” with her fiery color, from which the second name appeared.
Fire
External signs
This is one of the recognizable duck species with a long neck and a short beak of large sizes on high legs. In terms of dimensions, wild ducks ogar are similar to their related sheaths:
- the body length is 0.6-0.67 m, with a wingspan extending to 1.2-1.45 m,
- poultry weight ranges from 1.0 to 1.6 kg.
The description of the birds often comes down to the characteristic of the color: the bright orange-red plumage smoothly passes on the head into lighter shades of whitish ocher. The primary flight feathers on the wings, tail and in the upper tail are painted black and have a greenish sheen.
At the onset of the mating season and during the nesting season, males “put on” a so-called “collar” - a ring of black feathers - around their necks, and nature decorates the heads of females with white spots on the sides.
Above and below the body on the wings, the covering plumage is white, it is clearly visible in birds flying in the air. Green mirrors adorn the secondary feathers.
When the seasons change, the plumage of the females and males of ducks does not change significantly, only in drakes the bright feather color dims slightly. The young generation of carapace is similar in color to its plumage as females.
Features of behavior
Ogari are excellent swimmers, but in flight they look massive, rarely flapping their wide wings, the more they look like geese than their duck counterparts.
The red wild duck prefers to live in small flocks or to stay in pairs, rarely you will meet large clusters. Only in wintering places do they try to unite in large groups on the shores of lakes or small rivers.
The voice of the fires is compared with a loud goose gaggle.
The voice of red ducks can be heard throughout the year. They are similar in timbre to Canadian geese. Most often, you can hear sonorous “ang” turning into two-syllabic stretched “aak”. Screams often end in a dull trill. The sounds made by the drakes and the female ducks differ: females prefer to "speak" loudly and loudly with an emphasis on "a", while the drakes prevail "o".
When the hunt begins, some hunters compare the sounds made by the red ducks with the neighing of donkeys.
When kept in captivity, the fires begin to show aggressiveness in character and become closed, so the best way will be to keep them in pairs or in a small limited space. However, they can live peacefully next door to other duck species, with the exception of the nesting period, when birds begin to show their temper.
Distribution geography
The largest range of distribution of fires extends from the Greek steppes to the Manchu semi-deserts to the Chinese provinces. Small settlements of red ducks can be seen in northwest Africa and Ethiopia.
The African bird population has an average of 2.5 thousand representatives, spread from Morocco to Algeria.
After the 90s of the last century, scientists recorded the movement of ducks in the direction of Tunisia on the shores of Lake Chott El Jerid.
The European species is found in the Turkish and Greek north on the shores of the Aegean Sea, the Bulgarian and Romanian west on the Black Sea coast.
According to experts, about 200-500 representatives live in Ethiopia. They are rarely hunted there.
A small population of ogar ducks has survived in the Crimea and Ukraine. In Russia, the red duck can be seen in the south of the Azov region, in the Krasnodar Territory and in the Amur Region. The nesting border in the north runs through Kazakhstan.
Outside of natural habitats, wild fires are often found in urban areas, acquiring the qualitative characteristics of synanthropic animals dependent on humans. So, duck fire can often be observed on park ponds in the Moscow region, where they remain throughout the winter period on ice-free water.
Nesting and breeding sites
Asian representatives of ducks make migratory flights to the south, staying out the winter in the Caspian territory, in the Himalayas and in the region of the Indian plains. European and Turkish populations remain sedentary, roaming only occasionally relatively irregularly in search of food.
As places for nesting, ducks prefer salty inland reservoirs, not requiring a large area to search for food. For this reason, ogars often live at fairly large distances from water. An exception for birds is taiga and heavily overgrown reservoirs.
Ogar bird often settles in mountainous areas at an altitude of up to 5 thousand above sea level.
By the age of two, the bulk of the fires begins to reproduce. Monogamous pairs persist for many years, forming in wintering places. For nesting, birds also fly on the ice lying on the water bodies from March to April. Marriage courtship begins with games, while in the fires the main role is played not by the drake, but by the female - it is she who selects a partner.
Like the sheath, the female builds her nest at a height of up to 10 m from the ground in various niches. These can be gullies in the banks, hollows in trees, crevices in rocks, animal burrows.
The built nest can be used by the same parents for several years in a row.
A month after the flight to the nesting site, the ogary duck lays eggs, which can be up to 8-12 pieces. Chicks hatch exclusively by a female, without the participation of a drake, for a month. Both parents begin to take care of the newly born offspring. Chicks 8-9 weeks after birth, already firmly stand on the wing.
Power features
The diet of ducks consists of both plant and animal food, however, the red representatives still give preference to the first type of food, only sometimes including the second on the menu. The proportion of plant and animal feed depends on the geography of the birds and may vary among different populations, which is affected by the habitat.
Ogars ducks are distinguished from close relatives of shelled ducks by feeding mainly on land, and not on the water surface. Although the red duck also knows how to get food for itself on the water. They choose time to search for food in the evening and at night, resting during the day.
With the onset of the warm spring period, the red fire often looks for food on grass lawns or plucks out vegetation between sand dunes. The seeds and shoots of plants such as hodgepodge become its prey. He eats a variety of grains.
Fire duck or red duck (Tadorna ferruginea)
The story of the duck (duck Ogary)
Russian MMA Cup 2015: Ilya Bondarev - Vadim Ogar
With the arrival of the summer season, the birds, together with the emerging offspring, move to salt licks, where insects, mainly from the locust family, become their prey. On the lakes, they catch small fish and frogs, feed on mollusks and worms.
At the end of summer and closer to autumn, birds master in the fields with winter crops. There millet and millet serve as their food.