Can Birds populate a farm dam with (one) carp?

[David Rees <>]

Eggs could possibly travel on weed which could get stuck onto birds in various ways.  Given the possible distance involved desiccation may mot be an issue.  Farm machinery or even a gum boot or two could do the same perhaps.

David

On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 6:02 PM Kevin and Gwenyth Bray <> wrote:

Not entirely a non-bird matter!  At our son’s farm near Adelong NSW, we found and retrieved a live carp (about 30 cm long) in a (now very shallow) dam, where no carp have been placed or seen before.  There’s a running water creek about 700 or 800 metres from the dam, with many carp in it.  The dam’s in the middle of a paddock, with no drainage from (or to) it from the creek.  Can anyone offer a plausible explanation as to how this obviously healthy carp could have got to the dam?  I can think of two possibilities, but don’t know if they are actually feasible:  could a bird have taken the carp – perhaps when a lot smaller – from the creek and (by chance?) dropped it into the dam;  or could a bird have taken a mouthful of carp eggs from the creek and deposited one or more of them in the dam?  Are there any other possibilities?  It’s been extremely dry in the area for many months, so no possibility of the dam and creek having been “connected” by water, and even after heavy rain there’s no drainage from the (lower level) creek to the (higher level) dam.

 

Kevin Bray