Water Hen Goes Nutty!

["bob moffatt" <>]

I have been monitoring this nest - they are Purple Swamphens, they (both a 
male and female) commenced incubating nuts pre 8th Jan and are still 
sitting!!  I have more photos and considering writing a short note for 
publication, the nest is certainly not the typical Swamphen nest of reed 
stem sections but rather a bowl in somewhat rank grass - that has since been 
mowed (slasher raised to avoid slashing nest!).  I suspect they may have 
lost a clutch of eggs(??) and the nuts are substitutes (?).   I dont know 
whether they gathered the nuts or whether the nuts may have accumulated in a 
depression which may then have enticed them to incubate(?).
There is a recent report of Black swans incubation glass bottles (see Aus 
Field Ornithology Vol.23 No1. March 2006).
Bob Moffatt
There was an article in a recent