Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 130
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
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| Squadron of mallard ducks western side of the expressway |
What it doesn’t pay to do in conservation, is try and second
guess nature and we’ve been caught doing just that. No sooner had we
registered our concern about the
disappearance of ducks from this area than a squadron turned up. This was late
Friday afternoon, down at the far end of
the western side of the wetland. We couldn’t get too close, but they were
primarily new generation mallards without their mature colouring, their mothers still
in tow.
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| These protected grey teal (adolescent in front) still loose 6% of their number during the duck shooting season |
Mixed in with them however was another good news story, a
family of grey teal. You can tell teal apart from ducks, not only because they
are smaller and differ in colouring, but the parents stay together through the
breeding season. So if you see two together with youngsters they are usually
teal. We have seen this behaviour also in our very rare and endangered native duck
-parera, but mallard mums all go solo at nesting time.
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| Grey teal |
We remain mystified by our summer weather. It appears as if
spring has simply carried on though January with a series of southerly fronts
steaming across these islands during what should be beach ball weather. Another 20 mls of rain again last night
(with winter snow on South Island ski fileds), has marred the holidays of many,
but is great news for the wetland. It is carrying a lot of water for this time
of year, when it is usually drying up.
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| Royal spoonbill eyeing up a young mallard male |
It is also regularly attracting this royal spoonbill. He is
surprisingly dirty however which is a bit of a worry because it usually indicates a sick animal.
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| Royal spoonbill shaking out |
In our last post we featured three pied stilt chicks which
were first observed in mid-November, so are pleased to report that all three
have survived and are now starting to put on their mature coats.
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| Pied stilt chick - mid-November |
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| Nearly there. -Pied stilt chick mid-January |
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| And another... |
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| And another |
They are domiciled
on the eastern side of the expressway and still under the care of their
parents.
Finally a couple of shots of pukeko from the Ratanui wetland
about 4 km away.
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| Whoops - pukeko takes guard... |
It is always difficult, and often foolhardy to try and fathom
odd animal behaviour, especially when it is difficult telling the males from the females. When
this pukeko kicked up a fuss as we tripped over each other, however our curiosity was
aroused. Sure enough, shortly after, a companion came barrelling out of the brush,
did a double take at the intruder and headed off in the opposite direction.
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| Pukeko interrupted. They carry food like this holding it with a clawed foot, while stripping the succulent juice. But this is a dry twig. |
She
was carrying a large dry sprig in her beak (you can tell the
genders apart by the shape of their beaks but we're nt absolutely sure about these two, as the males usually do most of the sitting on the eggs ); so our surmise is that they had
begun to build a nest; probably their second this year.
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| self-explaining |
With the entire globe getting out on the street to register
its communal anxiety about what’s going on in the US, we were
playing a song for our times in support of that while we posted this – Frank Zappa and the Mothers… Trouble Coming Everyday
Well I'm about to get up sick
From watchin my t.v.
Been checkin' out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it's gonna change, my friend
Is anybody's guess
So I'm watching and I'm waiting
Hopin' for the best
Even think I go to praying
Every time I hear them sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' everyday
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