Male Mandarin Duck going into Eclipse

On the last day of our wonderful Peak District birding tour, this was our last species: Mandarin Ducks (Aix galericulata)--often just called Mandarins. They are closely related to Wood Ducks.

The males are exotically spectacular at the height of their breeding plumage, but this one is moulting into "eclipse" plumage--"it replaces the breeding plumage after the breeding season and appears at a time when the main flight feathers are moulting."

Our last day was very good--we saw all of our main target birds: Ring Ouzel (really hard to see--it was about our sixth try), Dipper (here's one from our Belgian trip in February), and Red Grouse, in addition to the mandarins.

That's it for now, we're back in London and it's late :)