BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Mallard

MALLARD
Anas platyrhynchos

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

Europe: no SPEC category (favourable conservation status in Europe, not concentrated in Europe)
UK: green

Long-term trend

UK, England: rapid increase

UK population size

50,400–127,100 pairs in 1990 (1988–91 Atlas: APEP06); 63,000–158,900 pairs in 2000 (updated using CBC/BBS trend: BiE04)

Status summary

The Mallard has increased steadily as a breeding bird in the UK since the 1960s, and especially in England, an increase to which ongoing large-scale releases for shooting may have contributed (Marchant et al. 1990). Mallards originating from domesticated birds and not resembling wild-type birds in either plumage or behaviour are very abundant but perhaps under-represented in survey data, especially since many individuals appear to be semi-captive. A large part of the increase in breeding numbers may be attributable to such birds, rather than to true-bred stock. Winter populations have declined since the late 1980s (Collier et al. 2005), linked apparently to a decrease in continental immigration (Mitchell et al. 2002).

Population changes

Productivity trends

Productivity information is not currently available for this species

Additional information


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This report should be cited as: Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Crick, H.Q.P., Noble, D.G., Balmer, D.E., Coombes, R.H., Downie, I.S., Freeman, S.N., Joys, A.C., Leech, D.I., Raven, M.J., Robinson, R.A. and Thewlis, R.M. (2006) Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2005. BTO Research Report No. 435. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends) Pages maintained by Susan Waghorn and Iain Downie: Last updated 19 May, 2006