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The white-eyed duck is a family of duck ducks, they are medium in size and have a dark brown or red head.
What external signs does a white-eyed dive have?
Weight can be from 400 to 800 grams. The body is 42 cm in size, its wingspan is from 63 to 67 cm. The female differs from the male in the color of plumage. Their neck and chest more has a purple tint and there is a black ring on their neck. Neck behind and nadhvoste of black-brown color. The abdomen is almost all white, the chest is dark.
The white-eyed dive's tail is white; it is very clearly visible when the bird is in flight. There are stripes on the wings, they are also white, but in order for them to become noticeable, the duck must fly up, you cannot distinguish them in a sitting position. A distinctive feature of this species are white eyes. The color of the female and male is quite similar to each other, but in females it is not so bright and contrasting. There is no metallic sheen in brown-red color. The body is brown above. The belly begins with a dark color, and smoothly turns into light shades on the chest.
Females of this species and young ducklings have an iris of red and brown. There is white color on the wings. Feminine spine is also white. In ducks, the limbs have a rich dark gray shade. The males have white eyes, and the plumage color is the same as the female. You can distinguish a young bird from an adult duck by the catchiness, in young ducks it has not a pure white color, it is supplemented with slightly mottled spots and a dirty shade. The difference between a white-eyed dive and other ducks is that it does not sit too deep on the water, its tail is raised high. It takes off easily, without complexity.
Where does it live?
You can meet a white-eyed dive not only in a pond, but also in a semi-desert terrain or steppe. Of course, most often the duck can be found in a flat reservoir, but the forest-steppe is not an exception at all. They settle on salt and fresh lakes, make their nests in river deltas. Choose places where there is a reed, a rod and a reed, all this suits them best. This location attracts ducks with its secrecy and secret lifestyle. In the cold season, with the advent of winter, birds move to the coasts or remain in a large body of water, in which there is a lot of floating vegetation.
Breeding and nesting process
They can equip their nest on the shore of a reservoir, but this rarely happens. Most often this happens in an abandoned tree or burrow of a muskrat. You can see that the duck does not nest alone, but with its feathered relatives. Their nests are located at a short distance from each other. As the main building material, they choose plant debris and fluff.
Eggs laid by the female can be creamy red or creamy white. The quantity is different - from 6 to 15 pieces. Only the female hatches eggs, such a process takes 24 -28 days. While the duck hatches eggs, the male rests in the vegetation near the nest itself, but as soon as the chicks appear, it helps to drive them. Males molt during broods too.During the season, ducks of this species lead one brood. Independent flights of ducklings begin after 55 days. A year later, they are already breeding. In the last summer month, ducks prepare for departure, fly away to winter to the coast of the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean, and then their course is directed to southwest Asia.
What does the white-eyed dive eat?
Such ducks prefer plant-based foods. They eat all the plants that are in the water or on its surface, can eat vegetation, which is on the shore near the reservoir. In addition, invertebrates are present in their diet, which can be larvae, insects, mollusks and crustaceans. They catch them right in the pond.
Behavior
Ducks are more active in the morning and evening. In the daytime they are in a calm state and relax on the water. In general, we can say that the lifestyle of a white-eyed dive is secretive. They feed on a bird near a pond and notice them is not so simple, which indicates their caution and prudence.
Spread on the planet
White-eyed dives are widespread in Kazakhstan, Europe and even Asia Minor. Today, this bird is considered rare, since it has disappeared from many places. There is evidence that she flew north to the middle taiga, and nested in the southern taiga.
The extreme border, which is located in the north of Russia, is a duck nesting area. It is worth saying that over the period of 10 - 15 years, the territory on which this species of bird was distributed has decreased significantly. Today, a white-eyed duck darts its nests in the territory of the Sea of Azov and the lower Volga region, just like a duck can be found in the south of Siberia and the Ciscaucasia.
In Kazakhstan, Central Asia and the Near and Middle East, a dive lives. As for the northern border of bird nesting, it is not constant, often changing. Wintering of ducks takes place on the Azov, Black, Caspian and Mediterranean coasts. It happens that they remain in the inland waters of Turkey. During the flight, they may end up on the western side of the Caspian Sea, if the air temperature is not very high, then they stay there to winter.
Possible threat to existence
The worst threat to the habitat of the white-eyed dive is the disappearance of swamps. Such duck species in some places has reduced its distribution. Land reclamation strongly influenced the decrease in the natural habitats of birds. But, no less threat is the hunt for ducks - this significantly reduces the number of individuals of this species.
Such a species as a white-eyed duck has been listed in the Red Book of Russia for a long time and is in second place in terms of reducing its number and range.
Preserving the look of a white-eyed dive
The territory of reserves and sites where the white-eyed dive lives is strictly protected. In order to preserve a rare bird species for the period of their accumulation during migration and wintering, it is necessary to create environmental protection zones for them. It is necessary to prohibit hunting for rare species of dive in and near water bodies where birds feed.
What is interesting in the life of white-eyed dives is that for food extraction in the pond blacks dive directly under the water. In this state, they can be up to 20 seconds and fall to a depth of three meters. Most of their lives pass in the water, they rarely go ashore. The behavior of the dives is interesting and unusual; watching them is not only curious, but also fun.
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