Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 84
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
In a previous blog (June 1) we
featured a male paradise duck, paired with a female, left injured
by duck shooters.
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| Injured para - May31 |
We didn’t think this bird had much of a
chance of surviving but the two appear to have made the Wharemauku their home,
with the good news that he is surviving if not thriving, and the two are still together.
Part of the reason for this is that, even though he is limping and dragging a
wing, he can still fly. The other factor is the continuing attention he is
receiving from his mate.
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| Paradise duck - putangitangi pair on expressway excavation July 19 |
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| Long shot of the pair showing destroyed wetand |
Paradise duck females are very maternal.
They are constantly on duty during nesting, very noisy when alarmed and rarely lose a chick. Here this alertness seems to extend to her mate, yet their
relationship dynamics are just various as ours. Sometimes the male will be the
more assertive, at other times it will be the female.
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| Disabled male paradise duck |
This seems true of other species as well.
One morning we watched a mallard male
make a play for a parera-cross female. Her parera-cross mate was intimidated by
the larger more aggressive mallard and continually backed away from a
confrontation. The female watched this from afar without comment, but then came an extraordinary
moment as the mallard having neutralised his rival, made a play for her. She
turned on him her iciest glare. He shrivelled before it at which she simply
sauntered passed, back to the mate of her choice.
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| Parera-cross pair - Raumati Beach dune lake August 2012 |
This begins to reveal the complexity
of these animals. That the females aren’t simply attracted to the biggest, fittest
male; and that they play a decisive role in the choice of their mate.
Perhaps it is because of this female
resistance that mallard males have developed gang related behaviours in
assaulting females, even as they are protecting ducklings. But then, because there's no accounting for real life, you get
the opposite happening with a female being lured away from her brood by the
attentions of a male. There are good mums and bad mums in every species it
seems; not to mention deadbeat dad's.
A Note on PAW
Peace Action Wellington is an
organisation we follow and support because they campaign against war and violence.
They do this by exposing how the tentacles of weaponry production are now
reaching into the most surprising areas of our local business activities. They
are currently publicising the 2015 Weapons conference – to be held in TSB arena wellington, in November and plan to confront this with uncompromised principles and good humour. You
don’t have to live here or get involved to help. Support them by email. Send
them some cash. Sign the petition…
Track we were listening to while posting
this Bob Dylan’s Masters of War. He lost his sense of humour a little on this one…but its hardly surprising.
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.
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