Paul; I also noted cygnets at Lake Lorne in the
past month, but there was a total of 13 of them in early November.
Strangely for very young birds, they were paddling about on their own,
with no adult birds in sight. I suspect that there have been several
pairs of swans nesting and the cygnets have been forming "creches" from
several broods which may be supervised by a pair or just left to their
own devices!
Lake Lorne continues to provide surprises - as well as the Freckled
Duck, Blue-billed Duck, Black-fronted Doterells, Latham's Snipe,
roosting cormorants and spoonbills etc, there was a Glossy Ibis present
on 3/11/2008.
Barry Lingham
Swans and cygnets
| To: |
"'Birding-aus'" <
> |
| Subject: |
Swans and cygnets |
| From: |
"Paul Dodd" <
> |
| Date: |
Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:31:32 +1100 |
Ruth and I visited my parents in Drysdale (Vic) this weekend just gone, and
noticed something a little odd at the local wetland (McLeod's Waterholes).
The last time we were there was about six or seven weeks ago and we saw a
swan family - two adults and five cygnets - all small (two or three weeks
old, according to my mum) and all the same size. This weekend we saw the
swan family again - two adults and four cygnets. Three of the cygnets were
now much larger - hardly surprising since they are now around nine or ten
weeks old. However, and this is the odd part, one of the cygnets was about
half the size of the others. Can anyone shed any light on this? I assume one
explanation is that this chick is simply the "runt of the litter", but I
wouldn't have expected such a marked difference in size. Is it possible that
this cygnet was hatched later? That seems unlikely to me since there was no
evidence of either swan still sitting on a nest the last time we saw them.
Another thought was that this family had somehow "adopted" another chick,
but that also seems unlikely to me.
Thanks,
Paul Dodd
Docklands, Melbourne
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