Ugly ducking's PC makeover

NAME CHANGE WAS A GAME-CHANGER BUT VULNERABLE DUCKS' FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN

- Stuart Winter

A DOWDY duck skulks amid vast rafts of winter wildfowl as if trying to dodge auditions for Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale.

Outshone by glamorous drake pochards and goldeneye in glistening shades of garnet and iridescent emerald, the young female long-tailed duck is the ultimate "ugly duckling".

So easily overlooked, she suddenly makes a deep dive before resurfacing in open water.

This provides time to study her dun brown drabness - she will never develop the stiletto tail feathers of the magnificent drakes - but also allows me to ponder a back story as remarkable as the fable.