Has anyone thought about the possibility of these northern hemishpere ducks
migrating to Australia in worn breeding plumage and them moulting directly
into a new breeding plumage?
This isn't as outlandish as it may sound. Think about it. The bird is
about to moult and the environmental conditions suggest that it should be
moulting into a breeding plumage, so it does. Now I don't know if ducks can
do this but certain other species can.
Some male Superb Fairy-wrens, for example, are perfectly capable of moulting
from blue to blue plumage. Other males moult blue to eclipse then to blue
again in a very short period. Energetically expensive but what better way
to prove to the girls that you are a fit father?
If fairy-wrens can do it (when they don't really need to), why not a duck
that has all the signals suggesting that it is the corect thing to do?
It's a hell of a lot of worry for a tick! Has anyone thought of actually
watching the things for a while and trying to get some interesting
observational stuff that can be written up?
Food for thought
David Geering
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
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