About 10 days ago I found the remains of an A Wood Duck on
the small reserve on the S side of Carnegie Crescent, near Finniss.
These are usually the occasion for a bit of detective work -
apparently a sleeping or grazing bird was attacked by a predator during hours of
darkness. All entrails and skeleton missing, lots of feathers, head and
feet remaining. I suspect an urban fox, more of these being about
than people realise. Then this morning on Radio National, during a
discussion on the misfortunes of BP of all things, the simile was
perpetrated: “Well, they’re not going to just sit there like
a bunch of wood ducks”. I am inclined to doubt that the reference
is to the Australian Wood Duck, although this common duck does do a fair amount
of sitting. It is probably a reference to the Wood Duck
of North America, a familiar bird around ponds in the eastern US, which was
apparently the victim of some serious hunting in past times. This should
not be a ground for complacency on the part of the A Wood Ducks of the Canberra
suburbs, at least in Upper Narrabundah.
