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The mandarin duck continues its expansion in the Estany de Banyoles, where it continues to demonstrate that it has found a stable environment here to live and reproduce.
In this series of snapshots in La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos, captured this spring, we see how this unique duck shows off its unique pictorial colors, which instantly capture and seduce you.
Whenever I can I go to Banyoles to photograph the Estany, its fauna and its surroundings. This lake is different every day and it is worth visiting it regularly and enjoying its tranquility and relaxation.
Apart from the mandarin duck, a colony of storks has already settled permanently here, which demonstrates the power of attraction of the Estany not only for human beings but also for animals, in this case, birds.
The mandarin duck is a brightly colored species native to China, Japan and Siberia, which has been introduced to various parts of Europe and is highly appreciated for its beauty, especially for the male’s plumage (the female’s is more discreet). ).
Elegant and robustly built, it can measure 45 cm in length. A curiosity is that female and male only look alike if the latter is protected by their “eclipse” plumage.
It has a red pompadour with green metallic glitter on the forehead and two lateral stripes of white or very light cream, in which the dark eyes and the beak of a coral red tone stand out. As if they were beards, it has coppery orange feathers.
The chest and throat are purple; The belly is white, and the sides are a cream tone with two bluish bands, which give way to orange stripes that curve upwards.
The Banyoles pond is the largest in Catalonia. The Estany and its lake basin are considered the largest karst complex in Spain and constitute an environmental system of notable value.
