birding-aus

Re: [Birding-Aus] Royal ³ set-to² in Royal Park

To: Birding Aus <>
Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Royal ³ set-to² in Royal Park
From: Gary Davidson <>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:46:42 -0800 (PST)
I find this interesting since the coot was the victim!  I recall watching a 
small pond that had both a family of Mallards and a family of [American] 
Coots.  One of the Mallard chicks apparently came a little too close to the 
coots.  One of the adult coots swam up to the mallard chick and pecked at its 
head repeatedly until it killed it.  The Mallard hen made no attempt to 
intervene.  Once the chick was dead, the coot calmly swam back to his/her brood!
Gary
Nakusp, B.C.
Canada
 


--- On Thu, 1/20/11, Denise Goodfellow <> wrote:


From: Denise Goodfellow <>
Subject: Royal ³ set-to² in Royal Park
To: "Chris Sanderson" <>, "jenny spry" 
<>
Cc: "Birding Aus" <>
Received: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 6:22 PM


Any parent who's ever had a child threatened knows the feeling!  I agree.
Great photo.  Thanks Jen and also Chris.
Denise


on 21/1/11 10:34 AM, Chris Sanderson at  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> We have put Jen's fantastic experience with the Grebes and Coots up on
> Bird-O:
> http://bird-o.com/2011/01/21/right-royal-%E2%80%9Cset-to%E2%80%9D-in-royal-par
> k/
>
> Jen that photo is amazing!
>
> Regards,
> Chris Sanderson
>
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 3:46 PM, jenny spry <> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>>
>>
>> With the first afternoon of sunshine in a while I drove to the storm water
>> basin in Royal Park, Melbourne, just near home. I had seen a family of
>> Australasian Grebe there and wanted some photos of their tiger-striped
>> chicks. The Grebe were still there and also a family of Coot, also just
>> itching to have their photos taken.
>>
>>
>>
>> The two families drifted around with their young, slowly coming closer
>> together, and I imagined the chance of a photo of both families
>> harmoniously
>> feeding young in the warm afternoon sun. Suddenly though, one of the coot
>> started screaming and paddling frantically backwards, spray going
>> everywhere. Huge fish I thought, or perhaps an enormous eel no, obviously,
>> a
>> crocodile someone had dropped down a local sewer (I've read about that
>> happening!).
>>
>>
>> What it actually was though was an irate adult Grebe that had felt its
>> chicks were threatened. It had dived and come up under the coot and it not
>> only attacked, but chased the panicked coot from under water for some 10
>> metres or more before surfacing and attacking again, from behind and above.
>> As a friend said when she saw the image; ³that is one agro bird!²
>>
>>
>>
>> I will put the image on the BOCA site tonight but right now I need to go
>> back out in the sun with a cup of tea.
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers all
>>
>>
>> Jen
>>
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
>> send the message:
>> unsubscribe
>> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
>> to: 
>>
>> http://birding-aus.org
>>
> ==============================
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to: 
>
> http://birding-aus.org
> ==============================


==============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
==============================


==============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
=============================
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU