Where have all the females gone?

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 37

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

We have been cheering our out-of-season ducklings on, but didn’t give them much of a chance, especially after losing their mother; and so it has proved to be. The inclement weather has returned over the last few days and we haven’t sighted the three remaining youngsters since. Even making allowance for the lake terrain, which is providing such good cover this year, they have probably been taken. A finger of suspicion points back at the domestic black cat, mentioned in previous dispatches, again seen stalking through the blackberry.

Though the main problem has been the male mallards that continue to harass the females, separating them from their young. They now out-number females 8-1 an imbalance about which we can only speculate; that the females have got fed up and cleared out; that there is a gender imbalance in the local population (which seems unlikely); that the females have already settled on nests in the blackberry (and elsewhere). If this is the case they will be producing new broods of ducklings around mid to late September - a usual and much more sensible time. The mothers do seem to be able to put failure behind them and quickly lay a new batch of eggs following the failure of their brood.

Males in pursuit 

Female  in avoidance mode

Adding some weight to this theory was a female who appeared out of the blackberry, and was immediately set upon by a gang of males. The male parera seem to stay with the female while nesting which the mallard males don’t and she had a gamey Parera-cross mate with her who immediately sailed into this green headed gang on her behalf. He took on a good four mallards at a time, though this still left four more who set off in her pursuit. She was a good two thirds the size of the mallards but managed to out-manoeuvre the congo line behind her, while remaining oblivious to the fracas as she set about getting a quick feed. So perhaps she was taking a short break from a nest and recharging herself.

Also getting feistier by the day are the pukeko. It won’t be a surprise to see the adult pukekos bringing youngsters of their own out onto the lake within the next fortnight or so. And then the welcome swallows have been back under the airport bridge and may be preparing to nest under there again this year. We also hold out hope that these two putangitangi (paradise ducks) will breed on the lake this year. They are regulars down here at the moment.

Paradise duck pair Wharemauku pond

Still, we haven’t yet had the variety of water-bird life characteristic of this wetland including shoveller, grey teal-tete, and pied stilt amongst others so far. They aren’t far away however with a pair of tete and now three scaup, settled on Andrews pond which is about five minutes walk away to the north and about 50 metres from where the expressway is currently being excavated.

Scaup -Andrews pond - female in centre

It will be interesting to see if the scaup in particular breed on this wetland. This is a charming endemic diving duck, now rapidly settling back into this region and sometimes seen on the dune lake though it doesn’t appear deep enough for these scaup to settle here for long periods – unlike last year's dabchick.

Track we were listening to while posting this Big Bad John - from the early 1960's. We're copping hostile fire for putting this one up, so we need your support and so does Jimmy Dean...

Everyone knew/you didn't give no lip/to Big John

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