Mandarin ducks thrive in the West Midlands as UK numbers soar
Strikingly colourful mandarin ducks are turning up in growing numbers around Birmingham, drawing birdwatchers and photographers to Sutton Park and other green spaces across the region.
Mandarin ducks, with their vivid plumage and bright orange sail feathers, are turning up in growing numbers across the West Midlands, and birdwatchers are flocking to see them. Sutton Park in Birmingham is among the beauty spots where these exotic-looking visitors are drawing admirers.
James Benwell of the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust says around 15 males are on Keeper’s Pool in the park, alongside more females. Autumn is the best season to look, he explains, as the males recover their dramatic plumage after shedding it over the summer moult.
Local photographer Jamil El Farsi first found the birds at The Leasowes in Halesowen, then took his wife and children to Sutton Park in October. He says the colours are so vivid that the ducks hardly seem real, and some social media users have even mistaken pictures of them for AI creations. His younger children, he recalls, leapt about with delight on seeing that the birds were still there.
Getting a good picture is no mean feat. The ducks are shy, prefer quiet corners and often hide beneath overhanging willows. El Farsi spent about two hours waiting for one to climb onto a log for a portrait.
The figures support the impression of a species on the up. Nathan Cope, founder of BirdFact, says mandarins now appear in Birmingham-area birdwatchers’ records roughly five times as often as ten years ago, although the number of people logging sightings has held steady. Across the UK, he says, numbers have risen more than sixfold since the mid-1990s.
The wildlife trust reports that breeding numbers in England grew by 663% from 1995 to 2024. The UK is now thought to host somewhere from 4,400 to 7,000 breeding pairs.
The species is native to East Asia and was brought to England from China in the early 20th century. Cope says the British population is believed to descend from birds that escaped from collections around a century ago. The Canal and River Trust regards the ducks as non-invasive, with no threat to native species.
Why it matters
Many introduced species cause problems for native wildlife, so a newcomer that settles in without harming its neighbours is rather good news. The mandarin’s rise also shows how a single eye-catching bird can draw people to local parks, giving families and keen photographers a reason to slow down and look closely at nature on their doorstep.
