Several birds, including the all too familiar magpie, pied wagtail, oyster catcher and the somewhat less common goldeneye duck, exhibit black and white plumage.

To my mind, one of the most attractive of them all is the rather dumpy but dapper tufted duck. Only the male sports black and white coloration although the head, which bears a drooping crest, sometimes glows with a purple sheen in sunlight. The female is much more understated having similar overall patterning but dull brown and dirty white.

The bird's population has increased considerably over the past few decades especially noticeable during winter when residents are joined by migrants from Iceland and Northern Europe. Most local lakes, Royal parks and the Wetland Centre are especially good locations, as is the Thames at Kingston.

Belonging to the family of "diving ducks", they can be seen submerging and re-surfacing with small round objects that look like either water snails or freshwater mussels, their favourite snack, picked up from the river bed. Insects, small fish, frogs and submerged vegetation also feature in their diet.

However, tufted ducks do not often join mallard and black-headed gulls in their mad scramble for bread thrown by children, and cruise along disdainfully out of reach of the melee.

January 30, 2003 11:00