While at the Newline Quarry site near Canberra Airport on Sunday,
I encountered a female Wood Duck with seven ducklings on the small dam.
As I approached, they left the dam on the far side, and disappeared
behind a bramble/thorn bush.
When I had walked around the other side of the dam, I wondered where
they had gone. Scanning along the edge of the dam, I found them sitting
not far from where I last saw them. The female was sitting very low
and motionless, with her neck stretched out at ground level; the seven
ducklings were sitting close around her. Despite the lack of ground
cover to hide in, the camouflage of her mottling and eyestripe - and
those of the ducklings - were very effective and they could have been
overlooked as a piece of, er, wood. At no time did they make a sound.
--
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Paul Taylor Veni, vidi, tici -
I came, I saw, I ticked.
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