Duck surprises at a New Zealand dune lake

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Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

This pair of what looked like domestic visitors, turned up at the dune lake a couple of weeks ago and have decided to stay put. We were at a loss to identify them so turned to experts in Whanganui, Ridgway Lythgoe, Colin Ogle and Peter Frost for help. Here, with thanks, is Peter’s analysis…

This is a domestic duck, obviously with a predominance of mallard genes. (The other source of genes in domestic ducks is muscovy, the genes of which are clearly not present here.)

Domestic ducks of this kind are usually some variant of the ‘subspecies’ Anas platyrhynchos domesticus, although this subspecies is obviously not a natural one but has been applied to domestic birds, given the many hundreds of years of domestication of mallards. Ducks of this lineage have been further selectively bred to produce breeds such as the Indian runner duck, Campbell, Aylesbury (which are all white, as is the Pekin duck),  Abacot Ranger and many more (see https://poultrykeeper.com/duck-breeds/). These breeds in turn, if they go feral, which they often do, can interbreed; some may even breed with wild-type mallards.

Male domesticus 

My guess is that this duck is some mix either of Abacot Ranger or Silver Appleyard (or even a hybrid of both) and perhaps Indian runner (the male’s somewhat upright stance suggests that its legs are situated further back on the pelvic girdle than the usual mallard, a feature that is characteristic of runner ducks and which is why they can run rather than waddle).

There really isn’t much more to say, except that there are many of these domestic variants around, especially close to human habitation.

Peter Frost

Science Support Service -Project development; research; training;

scientific writing, editing and proofreading

You can contact Peter at

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Frost4

There has been a dramatic local decline in bird populations over the last few weeks and we are hoping this is due to normal seasonal migration, and not the duck shooting season which opened at the start of the month. Previous to the Expressway development we would usually have up to 20 mallards in resident through winter but this year we are reduced to these two, caught in siesta.

Mallard pair

This coincides with a notable decline in ducks seen further up the Wharemauku in the town centre(where they can be fed by the public), though this could still be the result of the disturbance caused by the Expressway construction.

It has been good however to see shovellers and grey teal finding a home here. 

Male Australasian shoveller

Female grey teal

Two male shovellers have been regularly sighted but only one female, and this  gave rise to a forelorn attempt by the lone male to attract a young female grey teal away from her mate. 

Grey teal pair and male shoveller

He got short shift from her… 

That's close enough (she  scootled away back to her mate)

One thing we haven’t seen before at this time of year are these Pied Stilts. 

Pied stilts

They usually migrate (though they don’t leave this country) but these three don’t appear to be doing that and our guess is that they are the three youngsters we followed through summer. The adults may not have gone far, because there is still a colony at Pauatahanui about 20 km south as the pied stilt flies. 

Pied stilts

With much more room to breed now, we are looking forward to an increase in the local population of these delightful birds

Spot the intruder

Finally an addition to our spot-the-intruder competition… Winter starts tomorrow and the wet weather hasn't let up since last spring; but the little indigenous guy in this foto continues to survive and thrive. 

Track we were listening to today… we are going back, way back into the Kiwi underground of the sixties  where  the La De Da’s went  head to head with the Rolling Stones, to send out this airy roiling classic… How Is The Air Up There. 

The first time that I saw you

Said you'd hope I never change

Your folks took one look at me

And they sure acted strange

This post goes out to art aficionado and local confederate LK (she knows who she is!) currently gallivanting round Brexit country and out into the EU  – time to get home and get those broad beans back in the ground…Spring is on the way.     

Environmental artist Jill Studd’s blog

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Rare film of New Zealand dabchicks-weweia courting

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 137

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Here we continue our romance with our delightful little grebe the dabchick. Early in February (late summer), we posted a clip of a dabchick pair busy feeding a youngster.

Dabchicks with youngster -13 February 2017

It is now late autumn, and here is the evidence with this surly weather system storming across Kapiti Island around 9am this morning.

South end of Kapiti Island bearing the brunt

For three months  the wetland birds have been hanging around in adolescent flocks but they are now beginning to pair off. Dabchicks are notoriously secretive. They can’t walk on land  and usually fly only when agitated. 

White tailed dabchick at Ratanui wetland

They do so at night, close to the water and over short distances but are very poor fliers so we don’t really know how they move around, only that they do. They are also underwater a great deal and we lose sight of them then as well.

So we were delighted to shoot this footage of the courtship of these delightful little grebes. It was early morning and at a distance, so the light is very poor, but it gives a clear idea of the intimate dance undertaken in the process of pairing up.

We’ve set this to one of John Mayall’s jaunty tune’s, Let’s Work Together; which shows clearly how this pas de dieux is an intimately, improvised and playful dance. This is not the behaviour of the conditioned automata so dearly beloved by the scientific imagination. It is as if the two birds are listening to the same soundtrack, so attuned are they to each other.

The dance is led off by the female (she is on the left, slightly smaller and more colourful), who takes all the risk in initiating the cavort, but she soon has the male hooked and takes off to continue underwater, where we can’t follow.

The closer we observe our fellow creatures the more clearly we  see the similarities, not the difference.

Track we were listening to while posting this was the Marseillaise from 1792! 

Enfants, que l'Honneur, la Patrie

Fassent l'objet de tous nos vœux!

Ayons toujours l'âme nourrie

Des feux qu'ils inspirent tous deux. (bis)

Soyons unis! Tout est possible;

Nos vils ennemis tomberont,

Alors les Français cesseront

De chanter ce refrain terrible:

So Viva La France, for once again setting the standard!!!

France - the balloons go up!!

Jill Studd’s Blog

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New Zealand heads off US in repeal of environmental law

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Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Government gives two fingers to our environmental legislation

This conservative NZ government has been trying for 9 years now to repeal the RMA, (our environmental law) that ironically, it was itself responsible for passing back in 1991. Its allies had been refusing to help, until finally it succeeded with the support of the Maori Party.

This is a very unholy alliance and while we support a much louder voice for Maori in Governmental processes and decision making, this is not the way to do it. The change effectively excludes Maori from the provisions of a law that applies to everyone else. The response to this has been very muted, but imagine the outcry if a progressive government had run such a shabby political gambit. It is gerrymandered legislation however, and unlikely to survive passed the term of the current regime.

The Government has been relentless in its attack on the environment,  starving DoC of adequate funding, allowing mining in protected areas, turning the EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) into a toothless lackey, used to fast-track projects that bypass the law,  then, when frustrated in getting its repeal legislation through parliament, resorting to regulation. 

(For our US punsters, this is the local equivalent to the issuing of an executive order, though over here we don’t have your judicial system to review such behaviour. In fact, aged High Court Justices are usually used to front fast-tracked inquiries.)

It did this to undercut local authority power, administered through district plans, to control the wholesale felling of trees. The end result has been the appearance of stumps like these throughout our local neighbourhood.

What can be done?   

Well, we might have sat on our hands, or bleated away in the press, but our activist response has been to reverse this destruction by beginning a programme of replanting native seedlings off our own bat. These are being placed into areas where they originally flourished and seem relatively safe in the longer term. We have to be careful here to use plants endemic to this area and have been fortunate to stumble upon a cheap and ready supply. We are keeping locations classified but here’s a shot of one of our fifth column transplants, hard at work, flourishing into maturity.

Spot the intruder!

And here is a rare photo of a rarish black shag, a youngster, perched atop the Wharemauku bridge. This is from 50  yards away but she wouldn't allow us to get any closer.

Finally another intrigue down at the Raumati Beach dunelake, where we stumbled across this pukeko and her youngster.

We had to be very quick with this as the little one shot into cover immediately though again, we were 50 yards away. It was very early morning and a little further on we were astonished to find another brood, this time of five chicks, around two weeks old though weren’t quick enough to get a shot of them. It is very late in the season for these birds to be bringing out youngsters and many may not survive the coming winter. However it augurs well for next years breeding season…

Track we were listening to today – Judy Collins it has to be scarifying her way through Nina Simone's - Pirate Jenny  

Then one night there's a scream in the night

And you say, "who's that kicking up a row?"

And ya see me kinda starin' out the winda

And you say, "what's she got to stare at now?"

Environmental artist Jill Studd's blog 

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New Zealand wetland and its motorway - Mixed messages on managing traffic in the 21st Century

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 135

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Paradise duck and Grey Teal flocking over the recently opened M2PP expressway

The expressway was opened in a fanfare of self-congratulation but after an initial outbreak of universal happiness… (families, we can here reveal, have been traveling from Wellington (60km), to try out the new highway, whilst fighting over who is going to drive!!!)… reality is beginning to sink in.

Instead of clearing the traffic jam into Wellington each morning the expressway has doubled commuting time to an hour and a half, with jams recorded as far back as Porirua (23km). This follows the experience of all major motorway initiatives that simply shift jams to other areas as our roads fill with more and more and more traffic. (Most of our neighbours run two cars, with one having four parked up on the lawn).

In the meantime retail shops are recording significant drops in their monthly takings as the bypass takes effect.

The wetland areas opened up however, continue to provide a very positive story. This area had been designed to drain dry, and this fueled our initial pessimism about the future of the area, but though the area has been completely remade, we are continually surprised by what is going on down here. 

Dunelake prior to expressway excavation

Dunelake from google, prior to excavation

Excavations underway showing greatly enlarged areas. The green paddocks on the upper right are now a metre or more above the brown areas in the centre.

This area is usually dry between late January and early April but we now have water all year round. Because of the very wet summer (and now autumn), it is too early to predict this will be permanent, but in talking to one of the managers on site, it is clear the NZTA is also surprised by the permanence of the wetland area  opened  up. Their theory is that the area has been excavated below the local water table and if so, then this is likely to be permanent. The settling of the rear areas also appears to be aiding this with back flow occurring (outside the floods). 

The birdlife is showing its appreciation and appears not to be affected by the traffic flows close by. We now have wetland either side of the new road and while the original dune lake could host up to seventy birds, we have been sighting double this number, though their species variety has changed.

Paradise duck roosting- Western side of x/way

Paradise duck (up to 40) have settled permanently here since January, then mallard and parera-cross  ducks (50). Another prominent waterbird is the introduced Canadian goose, but what we are most delighted with is the colony of grey teal which were previously rare visitors.

Grey Teal roosting - west side

Around  twenty teal seemed to have found a base  here and they flock at times, mixed in with the paradise ducks (Putangitangi). Up to four pairs of pied stilt have also been resident over this summer. They have bred well  this year and  all going well, we should see more pairs of these elegant waders next year. 

anxious pied stilt parent investigates the photographer - x/way to left

One royal spoonbill seems to visit regularly but we still haven’t seen the rarer birds – scaup, shoveller, white faced heron and then the dabchick, while the local frog population has completely disappeared; though perhaps these will also return over time.           

Plantings on the east - mid December 

Same view a month later

The area has been replanted with local native species and here major problems are developing with weeds. This dune area provides extreme conditions with a swampy winter/spring and then drought-prone summers. We remain sceptical about the success of these plantings though they are off to a great start with the wet weather. However the weeds are making an even better start and here’s the evidence, above and below.

Dunelake west - rear mid December

Same spot a month later - weeded up

The NZTA are committed to a four year programme of weed control, when the natives should have developed a canopy to inhibit weed growth. We have experience in managing weed control programmes however and the moment you stop consistent  work on them is the moment  all your hard work slides into reverse. There are signs of weeding and spraying going on but it isn’t making much impact on the weeds in the lower reaches, although in this photo (below), the native rushes can be seen making a comeback and helping out. They should grow to dominate this area.

This channel appears to be draining the wrong way with wildling native rushes back taking over  

Meantime, here is another sign that the seasons are out of joint – a wary black swan female with her cygnets in mid-March (autumn over here), at Ratanui wetland. The father is out of the picture.

black swan family - Ratanui

Track we’ve been listening too while posting this? Well, we’ve been falling for Little Richard, all over again, because isn’t he adorable…  

Well, I saw Uncle John with long tall Sally

He saw Aunt Mary comin' and he ducked back in the alley 

oh baby 

Yeah baby, woo baby

Havin' me some fun tonight, yeah, 

Havin' some fun tonite.

Environmental artist Frances Jill Studd’s blog

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Yet another flood on the Kapiti Coast

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 134

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Royal Spoonbill, very early Sunday morning views the flood with approval...

We are cramped for time but putting up this quick post of fotos of yet another flood through the Wharemauku creek this weekend.

Wharemauku spills its banks 8.30am Sunday morning

Something is definitely going rogue in our weather patterns because we have been watching this area for 5 years now and floods like this one used to occur every two years. We have had four since September 2016.   

Height of the flood Sunday lunchtime

Fourth time since September

We recorded 120 mm of rain over 36 hours and once again the entire area on both sides of the now open expressway were flooded as the waters rose through the Saturday night and then flooded through Sunday.

A rough count came out at 140 birds

The very positive aspect of all this is the return of waterbirds to this area. We counted 140 paradise duck, teal and mallard along with . This is in the early morning when we also spotted the royal spoonbill (above). 

3 Welcome swallows rest up during flood

While black fronted dotterels seem still to be around.

Black-fronted Dotterel back at the wetland

We’ll be looking in more depth at these developments in new posts.

Environmental artist Frances Jill Studd’s Blog

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Flocking terns, poaching and political skullduggery at Kapiti's marine reserve

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 133

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

flocking white fronted terns on Paraparaumu Beach

The pleasure of living close to a marine reserve is amply demonstrated in this large gathering of white fronted terns, that over the past week have taken up residence on this coast, and are following schools of fish, shoaling through the reserve.

In flight

Something must be going right to find such a large congregation which, as these photos reveal, includes many adolescent birds.

Rested up

adolescent

We counted 216 squatting on the beach, then the next day they were back in even larger numbers. They feed off-shore with gulls and shags. Then, no doubt, larger marine fish like kahawai and kingfish are following in train, under water.

Southern section of Kapiti marine reserve. Island in background

Yet these reserves remain under constant threat, not simply from a government that might reverse or modify protecting legislation (as has been threatened in Australia), but also from illegal fishing.  In the days when we were involved running tours to Kapiti Island, cynical visitors observing the thick beds of regenerating paua (abalone to our overseas visitors) would joke about DoC staff helping themselves. (It never happens.)

And there is always the threat of illegal fishing. Here is a shot of a fishing boat, testing the law by running its nets right along our reserve’s northern boundaries.

Fishing boat trawling along northern edge of reserve November 2015

There is little to stop a boat like this dropping its nets into the reserve while travelling through the strait at night. What is also concerning is this net, set out on the beach in the middle of the reserve last Sunday lunchtime, with neither qualm or a fishery inspector in sight.

Hand held net, foreground 

net floats (detail)

Why? Because the government isn’t providing the funding to properly police this activity.

There is a worrying level of worldwide cynicism about governments and the ever widening gap between what they say and what they do. Having announced the laudable, but harebrained objective of ridding this country of introduced mammalian pests  within 50 years, (that doesn’t include the humans); it is now going to clean up our rivers within 40.

Noone believes this because... 

Is it achievable? No. Is there an election coming up. Yes. Are the Greens polling strongly. Yes. A hung parliament looks a strong possibility which explains why a government that’s spent the best part of nine years now,  trying to repeal the RMA (the legislation that puts environmental protection around development), disembowelling the Department of Conservation, and turning our Environmental Protection Authority, (Look Out America!), into the hand maiden of business interests, is now trying to green itself up.

The good thing about making lofty pronunciations on the environment is that they carry primetime coverage without giving time to look at what the detail might involve; which always comes down to how much money is going to be put into realising it. Which is why someone can happily place a set net in the middle of our marine reserve without having to worry about the consequences. There is no money to police it.

Massaging the truth in this way is a tried and trusted political strategy but it only works until you get caught out. It was through the risk of epidemics in the 19^th century that New Zealand developed a co-ordinated public health system very early; but only on paper. It was passed into law but never adequately funded; the healthy wealthy (who ran the country) drawing the line at funding the healthcare of the poor.  Epidemics showed no respect for wealth and class boundaries however and following public panic when the news broke that plague had arrived in Australia, suddenly there was ample cash to begin developing the full cover public health system we have today.

So what is it going to take to protect, fund then police the legislation designed to guarantee the quality of our unique but now threatened environment?

Track we were listening to while posting this... Well in lieu of a song we are putting up this link  to  a column in the New Zealand Herald we thought you might enjoy...We dare you 

Environmental artist Jill Studd's blog
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