While watching a male Musk Duck at Yerrabi Pond yesterday, I was surprised to suddenly see a female surface near the spot where the male had dived and surfaced many times. The bird dived and then the male surfaced. The female was not seen
again. On closer examination of the video taken, it is obvious that the female was in fact the male with his lobe not visible because it was stuck to his beak. The attached photo shows the bird with lobe down and from the bird’s right and left when the lobe
was stuck to the left hand side of its beak (the lobe stuck to the beak can be seen in the last photo). Note the unevenness of the lower edge of the beak in the central photo, indicating the lobe is present even though it is not visible.
Steve
