Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 92
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
Two thumbs-up for Forest and Bird
Followers
of these commentaries will be pleased to know that Forest & Bird has just published an article on the
destruction of this Ramati Beach dune lake in the Spring edition of their
magazine. You can read it and then we would encourage you to join. F&B are our leading conservation organisation -
the engine room of conservation in New Zealand.
And now back to New Zealand Parera.
We were talking about the problems of
making reliable observations about behavioural differences
between parera, parera-cross and introduced mallard ducks. Another complicating
factor is that not only do the birds look very similar, (especially in
adolescence), but their behaviours change where they have access to public
ponds.
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| On the wharf and on the make - domesticated mallard pair |
We were observing wild populations of
parera-cross birds. We judged they were wild because unlike mallards we
couldn’t get close to them, though another indicator was that we very rarely
saw parera-cross birds at public ponds. This isn’t because they were rare
however, but because they haven’t become domesticated into public areas, like
the mallard. (Because of there familiarity with mallard on public ponds, it is
rare to find a New Zealander who knows the difference between these two species, or
is even aware that we have a local native duck.)
The wild parera-cross birds at the lake,
seemed to form a hapu grouping of up to a dozen or more birds, but they can
lose half that number in May when the duck-shooting season begins. (It speaks for itself that while Fish & Game undertake research into mallards they fail to mention or show any regard for the plight of parera for which they and their predecessors are responsible).
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| A day's spoil - Enough is never enough when it comes to humans killing animals |
We aren’t aware of research on this subject, but our hunch is that these parera-cross birds
share a lot of DNA. They are cousins and know each other and the areas they
frequent. They don’t just fly around at random looking for food and a mate.
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| Gender diverse - a parera cross hapu |
With mallard however, it is the males that form into groups through spring and into summer. They hook up in
gangs of four or five and there is a definite pecking order. To our great
surprise these groups never seemed to include grey headed parera-cross males,
though we often saw grey headed parera-cross males, fighting with these green
headed ducks. Parera are
usually smaller than mallard but parera-cross are larger than their pure-bred cousins and can hold their
own, especially if there are females involved.
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| Parera-cross mallard standoff - Raumati Beach dune lake |
And the role of the females as we have
previously noted, is crucial. We have seen females flirting (successfully) to attract the male of their choice, and trying to move in on an already partnered male. More somberly they have also abandoned ducklings following the attentions of an insistent male. There are good and not so good mums (and dads) in every species it seems, though once attached, the female will
usually stick to her mate through thick and thin.
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| Parera-cross defending mate |
Yet the genetic lines between parera and other species also appear to be transgressed all the time because a more general interbreeding between
these waterbird species seems to be taking place. Once again it is hard to get
clear consistent evidence, but we have seen male parera-cross with shoveller
tail feathers – a parera-cross male paired up with female grey teal with the two nurturing five
adolescent parera-teal ducklings.
Then a female mallard with a grey teal head who
was obviously being shunned by her mallard compatriots – but then more alarmingly, a
very rare and endangered female brown teal-pateke paired up with a mallard male.
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| Parera male with grey teal family |
Most striking of all is one incident that didn't involve interbreeding, but the fostering by a mallard female of an orphaned NZ Scaup. Scaup are diving ducks and this chick caused havoc on a public pond when it began leading its siblings astray along with all the other ducklings on the pond, as they followed it in diving underwater. It all looked like great fun to everyone save the mothers of two other broods on the pond. They were very annoyed with one marching her brood down to the local creek to remove her youngsters from harms way…
Standing on the corner
Watching all the girls go by
Standing on the corner
Underneath the springtime sky
Brother, you can't go to jail
For what you're thinking
Or for the woo look in your eye
You're only standing on the corner
Watching all the girls
Watching all the girls
Watching all the girls
Go by
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