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This morning as I was running around Pt Hut Pond, I
disturbed a Purple Swamphen which ran from the shortish grass it had been
walking across towards the taller sedge-type growth at the waters edge. I was a
bit surprised to see a small form dangling from the Swamphen's bill and it took
me a second or two to realise it was a duckling. It was either freshly dead or
close to death as it was just flopping and swinging side to side limply as the
bird ran for cover and disappeared from view.
A quick googling using the terms "purple swamphen"
and food found a Museum of Australia Fact Sheet which says, "will also eat
ducklings when it can catch them". (None of my limited reference books at home
make mention of ducklings as a food source).
On Monday at the same spot there was a pair of
Australian Wood Ducks with one duckling visible and yesterday the same pair (I
assume) was there again, this time with 2 small
ducklings.
Although I neither saw the Swamphen kill nor devour
the duckling and I am unaware of how often this is observed in the ACT (or
Australia, for that matter), I think that what I saw was most probably an
example of the predatory, carnivorous behaviour mentioned in the Museum Fact
Sheet.
Bruce
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