Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 143
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
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| Looking East - Sunrise across the Wharemauku - forecasting trouble ahead... |
With 60mm of rain over the past three
days and another polar blast due any time soon, we are still knee deep in winter over
here, but nevertheless seeing a lot of spring behaviours now and having trouble keeping
up with them.
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| Putangitangi (Paradise Duck) couple grooming (female with white head) |
One of our main objectives has been to try and get close to the intimate lives of these birds (without disturbing them); to look for the connections they make between themselves, and then with other
species. This wetland has begun to look more and more as if it is harbouring an
integrated community life. There is plenty of conflict of course, yet just
as much co-operative comportment and here the similarities with ourselves, not
the differences, begin to pile up.
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| Parera-cross pair |
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| New arrivals. Canadian geese have not previously bred here and usually only overnight. but this pair look as if they intend to hang around |
And all this just a 5 minute walk away.
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| Pied Stilt pair |
We are planning a series on Spring pairings
and here is the first, a 3 minute clip on Pied Stilt.
We have seen a dozen of these elegant birds
down here over the past few months but only five seem to have taken up
permanent residence.
This is comparable with 2016 when two
pair coaxed three chicks into adulthood. There has been plenty of feisty conflict between
these five birds over the last few weeks but they have settled into pairs. Even now
however there is an alpha pair who keep the other two in their place, while the
loner seems to be one of the youngsters from last year who hasn’t yet got a
full adult plumage.
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| Pied stilt youngster from last year? |
When they begin courting the male is particularly aggressive towards interlopers (remind you of any other
species?), and there follows a period of mutual feeding and grooming before
mating takes place. The female is not passive through all this. She can be just
as aggressive towards interlopers and takes the lead in initiating grooming
behaviours that appear to reassure her about her chosen mate’s dependability. This
forms a very strong bond between the two (unlike with mallards say), with the male
then sharing nesting duties and playing a lead role in warning interlopers away
from the nest and the chicks.
Next post we’ll have a look at some of the other birds,
including welcome swallow, little shag, then the first pair of Parera-cross
ducks that have ventured back here since the expressway construction 3 years
ago.
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| Little Shag |
Track we were listening to while posting
this? Well, this is for all our US
friends. We too, are feeling your pain and hope you can still see the amusing
side of this selection that may provide a salve for it.
Show me around your snow-peaked mountains
way down south
Take me to your Daddy's farm
Let me hear your balalaika's ringing out
Come and keep your comrade warm
I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
You don't know how lucky you are boys
Back in the U.S.S.R.
It's Back In The USSR… 1968 with Paul
McCartney doing the Beach Boys doing Jan and Dean…
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