Hannah Coburn is a researcher based at the University of Essex and is currently working on Mallard population dynamics.
DucklingWatch is a nation-wide project in which anyone can submit their recordings of Mallard broods.Last year they had over 950 brood records from across Britain, and this year they want to get even more people involved.
This is a great chance for birders to contribute to the conservation of this familiar species. The data collected by DucklingWatch is used to estimate duckling survival and better understand how the proportion of ducklings that make it to adulthood affects the British Mallard population as a whole.
Hannah is hoping to gather data from across the country in this work and anyone can help.
Sightings can be submitted at https://citsci.org/projects/ducklingwatch where you will also find more information about the project.
The platform is as easy to use as possible, but we understand that it may be less easy to navigate for those that struggle with technology, so they also welcome records by email (to ducks@essex.ac.uk) – all we need is a location, date, duckling count and approximate age for each brood sighting.
To help with age I.D there is a really good guide attached, plus a poster should anyone wish to take it out to other community groups or organisations.
Image Credit; Gary Faulkner
Further Links;
WEBSITE citsci.org/projects/ducklingwatch
EMAIL ducks@essex.ac.uk
INSTAGRAM @duckling_watch