Common Shelduck Tadorna tadorna
Common resident, partial migrant and winter visitor, with concentrations mainly in the Humber, on the north-east coast and in The Wash. Fairly common as a breeding species in estuaries and coastal areas, scarcer inland.
Common Shelduck on the south Humber bank, north Lincolnshire November 23rd 2014 (Graham Catley).
The Atlas estimated the breeding population in the late 1980s at around 700 pairs split between The Wash (400), Humber (200) and inland (100). The winter population was put at 10,000 to 15,000 birds. BBS suggests the breeding population has declined but the sample is too small to draw firm conclusions. WeBS data reports that the 5-year winter moving average total for the Humber and The Wash from 2014/15 to 2018/19 is 4,700 and 2,250 respectively, a total of 6,950 birds suggesting a fall in the Lincolnshire wintering population. Pyewipe Marsh at Grimsby is a particularly important site. In July 2020, 6650 Shelduck were counted there (over 10% of the UK population in one flock), the highest count on the Humber since 1990/91.
(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), with minor amendment, included September 2022)