Yankee doodle duck

Ruddy ducks have bright blue beaks and upright tails and are one of the stiff-tail duck family. They actually belong in North America. There were a few at the Wildfowl Trust - as it was once known - down in Slimbridge, then in the 1960s quite a few escaped and began to breed around Britain. Then they went down to Spain and found an endangered type of stiff-tail duck - the white-headed duck. The ruddy ducks interbred with the white-headed duck, making Spanish conservationists furious. There is now a plan to shoot all British ruddy ducks and quite a few people agree with that, but Bill Oddie does not - he thinks they are lovely.