Wood duck deserting behaviour

["Philip Veerman" <>]

About two years ago, at ANBG just below the Tasmanian garden, I watched (from about 50 metres) 2 Australian Ravens harass a family of Australian Wood Ducks with small chicks as they walked on the path. Although the parents defended them the ravens were quicker. By dividing them they took 2 ducklings up to their nest in the big Euc in the lawn in front of Hudson's cafe. The minor relevance of this is to suggest from what you saw that if the ducklings were in a pond, it would be far more difficult for most bird predators to get at them.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----From: Megan Mears [ Sent: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 9:26 PM      To: COG Chatline
Subject: [canberrabirds] Wood duck deserting behaviour

In the absence of swanlings at my local North
Watson pond, I have been keeping an eye on ducklings this year. There's one
pair with 12 ducklings right now (Australian Wood Ducks). The ducklings are
quite big now, however  5-6 weeks ago I saw both parent ducks fly out of
the pond, leaving the young deserted for anl hour before both returned, quacked
a little and made out like nothing had happened. Having mother hen/duck
tendencies myself I hung about the pond, the whole time, waiting to see if
and when the parent ducks returned. I was relieved they came back.

Does anyone know if this is a common behaviour? I did not see any predator bird chase or scare the ducks though I was taking photos and might easily have missed it. 

Thanks everyone,

Megan Mears