Smew

The smew is a small duck and the only living member of its genus. The adult drake, with its cracked-ice or panda look, is unmistakable and looks very black and white in flight. Females and immature males are grey with a chestnut forehead and crown, white chin and cheeks and black lores, often called redhead smew, and there are oval white wing patches in flight. It is 38–44 cm long, with a wingspan of 56–69 cm and a weight of 450–650 g (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in the northern taiga from northern Scandinavia east to Chukotka and needs trees, nesting in holes such as old woodpecker nests. It lays 7–11 cream-coloured eggs in May, incubated by the female for 26–28 days, and the ducklings leave the nest soon after hatching. It winters on sheltered coasts or inland lakes, in Asia in the Caspian Sea, eastern China, Korea and Japan, with a small number reaching northern India. SoIB 2023 lists it as a winter migrant of wetlands that eats invertebrates, and does not assign a priority category (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).