Hmm, yes, Philip, I think it’s
called the annual cycle and let’s just say opinions are divided on the
usefulness of duplicated bulletins. To mention something where there has
been a certain amount of progression, without rehearsing the entire suburban
peafowl saga: there are now reliable reports of three separate broods of 3
chicks each, probably attributable to the one male, now trainless (not to be
confused with the trainless trainee at upper left). There is now a
theoretical population of 21, showing signs of becoming dispersed.
From: Philip Veerman
[
Sent: Saturday, 7 February 2009 10:56 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Maned Duck breeding - why repeated observations
help
I wrote to the list to mention that the phenomenon of finding large
clutches of chicks of Maned Ducks had been written about before. Just in case
some readers misunderstood why I was mentioning this, it is mainly because some
of the previous input was entertaining (and I believe I recall some photo evidence).
I thought those (perhaps newer contributors) making or reading the new
comments, may enjoy seeing some of the earlier comments as well, to add to the
story. Animal behaviour is often hard to explain unless there is evidence of
repeated occurrences of similar patterns to put it into a context. That is the
reason for saying it has been reported before.
I could say (I think obviously) there should be no suggestion
intended that it is not worth mentioning again, as further evidence of the same
thing. Similar explanation applies to similar comments that may arise in other
contexts.
