It is widely accepted in the scientific community that fish eggs can be dispersed into land-locked water in bird feathers. Some fish eggs are quite sticky which may itself suggest an evolutionary mechanism at work here. It is curious,
however, that accessible rigorous research is lacking. There is plenty of evidence of the dispersal of frog and other invertebrate eggs in bird feathers, so it would appear that the mechanism having been established, it has been presumed that this works for
fish too, so no one has yet bothered to specifically looked for fish eggs as opposed to other eggs. A nice little research project for someone, I suggest.
From: David Rees <>
Date: Wednesday, 13 March 2019 at 9:11 pm
To: Kevin and Gwenyth Bray <>, chatline <>
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Can Birds populate a farm dam with (one) carp?
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.
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.
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