An oil pastel sketch of a male wigeon out on a flooded salt marsh.
This rather engaging duck with its distinctive whistling call is a winter visitor here, usually from October through to March.
From the front they are enchantingly round and cartoonish, as if freshly dunked up to their midriff in a bucket of whitewash and with the male sporting a rather fetching yellow “mohican” forehead.
A pair of wigeon snooze in the depths of Chapel Pill at low tide – watercolour and oil pastel sketch.
These wigeon suddenly flew out of the late October shadows into the sunlit, sienna grasses above Chapel Pill. It seems their hasty departure was as much a surprise to this Canada Goose as it was to me . . .
. . . and as I watched a roe buck at the water’s edge in November a small company of wigeon startled us both.
Their white bellies are a great help in identifying them in flight, as are the male’s white wing bars (top left).
Visit the RSPB website to hear the whistling call of the wigeon www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/w/wigeon/index.aspx
. . . perhaps the collective noun for wigeon should be a “whistle” of wigeon, but a “raft”, “trip” or “company” are usual.
You must be logged in to post a comment.