Welcome to the Midnight
Collective Broadsheet 163
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
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| QEII Park wetland 5k south of Raumati Beach |
We are well into the breeding
season but still little sign of new progeny emerging in our local
wetlands. Down here at the QEII reserve
however we caught these two males having a set to.
Dabchick on the left, scaup on the right. These are of course, different
species and both males, so here followed a complicated interaction, that gives some insight into
inter-species relationships.
The problem
at the centre of it all was the male scaup’s partner who blithely slept through
the fracas. They are both diving
waterbirds, but the male scaup has a somewhat larger presence and decided the
dabchick was getting too close to the female. So he began to eyeball what he
took to be a potential rival.
Then kicked up a dickens of a row
when the dabchick didn’t back off.
At which the 'rival' did boat away to
a more responsible distance. The female in the meantime had climbed out onto a
fallen tree where the male scaup then followed.
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| Scaup pair - female on the log |
But what were the dabchick's
intentions? It's difficult trying to figure this out and mostly down to
supposition, but we have seen dabchicks hanging out with scaup pairs before and
their intention seems to be to socialise. We think the dabchick’s mate is most
probably sitting on a nest close by and he was looking for a little company. We
watched a female at the Ratanui wetland pal up with a scaup pair. It took a
while for them to accept her but then the three would often be seen diving
together, until a male dabchick turned up and they all went back to themselves. Of course a male might not be
quite as welcome (to a scaup male) as a female and this male seemed specially
bolshy.
Track we were listening to
while posting this – well, its 100 years since the closing of the murderous
tragedy that was WWI, so we spent some time trying to find the right soundtrack
and finally it was Vera Lynn we settled on. Ok it’s the wrong war but
nevertheless the right song -We’ll Meet Again- because her original haunting
version, manages to imply that it is far more likely that we won’t meet again.
So will you please say hello
To the folks that I know
Tell them it won't be long
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singin' this song
