Bird of the Year – the Long-tailed duck

The Estonian Ornithological Society has chosen the Bird of the Year since 1995. This year’s Bird of the Year, the long-tailed duck, is one of the most colourful of water birds and clearly stands out from the other arctic water birds found in Estonia. It is a species that winters on the Baltic Sea and spends most of its year here. Therefore, it has also been chosen as an indicator species reflecting the state of the Baltic Sea. The long-tailed duck has received a lot of attention all over the world due to its rapid decline in numbers and, unfortunately, this trend is not reversing. The long-tailed duck is on the list of globally threatened bird species and is also a threatened species on the IUCN Red List. An international action plan for the protection of the long-tailed duck was drawn up many years ago, covering the protection of the bird population in Western Siberia and Northern Europe, as well as in Greenland and Iceland.