Hardheads Breeding

[Con <>]

Hi Julie

Thank you for the interesting roundup.

The Kelly's brood had 7 ducklings yesterday.

kind regards

Con

On 1/1/2021 8:54 PM, Julie Clark via Canberrabirds wrote:

Hi All,

I received a phone call from a rather excited Bill Graham yesterday to tell me he'd just seen  5 very young Hardheads in the company of a female Hardhead  at Mulanggari Grasslands in Gungahlin. This was a first for him and he was hoping I'd go and take some photos for him. I was equally excited as I had never seen Hardhead chicks before either.

Yesterday Len & I visited the Grasslands and also saw the very small Hardhead chicks and was able to take some photos for Bill (and me!)

Today, with friend Joh, we visited the Grasslands again, seeing the five chicks, then we visited Kelly's Swamp at Jerrabomberra where we saw a slightly older  brood of Hardheads, as reported by others. Seeing the two broods in one day was pretty amazing when we'd never seen any before and I believe breeding records for our area are very uncommon.

We then visited a couple of other birding spots, finishing at the Valley Ave Ponds in Gungahlin. Who would believe it?? Another Hardhead brood .... 5 more chicks! These were the largest in size of the three with the Grasslands brood being the youngest and smallest.

I thought others might be just as surprised and amazed as us to know that there are currently 3 Hardhead broods in our area!

Photos of the three broods are on Flickr for anyone interested.

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Thanks again to Bill Graham for alerting me to the Grasslands brood!

Cheers

Julie

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Julie Clark

 

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