Long-tailed Duck - 2011 Status

Clangula hyemalis

Erratic winter visitor and passage migrant.

Long – tailed Ducks have a circumpolar arctic and sub arctic breeding distribution, normally the nearest nesting to the UK being in Norway and Iceland. They winter out to sea but to a lesser extent along coasts, entering estuaries and sometimes visiting fresh waters.

The first to be recorded in Pembrokeshire was a male in summer plumage shot near Haverfordwest on the 15th June 1843, chronicled by Mathew (1894) who also noted that two immature birds were shot on the Stackpole Estate but quotes no dates.

Coincidentally the next to be recorded was also in June, shot within the Milford Haven waterway on the 7th in 1906. There followed recordings in three years during the 1950’s, four in the 1960’s, five in the 1970’s and in every year from 1980 to 2006.