Garganey (Anas querquedula)

I was also excited to see this little duck called a garganey. It's fun to say, which is one of the minor reasons I like it, but the main reason I was excited is that they are apparently secretive birds, according to the RSPB web site. In fact, someone on the UK bird ID site that I joined guessed that someone's photo was a garganey, and so in the comments, I posted my photo of these three to show them why the original poster's bird was not a garganey. One commenter got so excited, they kept pressing me for details on exactly where in Regent's Park I had seen these birds and asked if I could point it out on a map. It started getting a little creepy, actually. In any case, I guess it was pretty lucky to see these as they are not often viewed in the wild, but of course, this is the value of collections here because you can include exotic birds but also ones you want to encourage the breeding of and ones that might otherwise be hard to find.