I find this interesting since the coot was the victim! I recall watching a
small pond that had both a family of Mallards and a family of [American]
Coots. One of the Mallard chicks apparently came a little too close to the
coots. One of the adult coots swam up to the mallard chick and pecked at its
head repeatedly until it killed it. The Mallard hen made no attempt to
intervene. Once the chick was dead, the coot calmly swam back to his/her brood!
Gary
Nakusp, B.C.
Canada
--- On Thu, 1/20/11, Denise Goodfellow <> wrote:
From: Denise Goodfellow <>
Subject: Royal ³ set-to² in Royal Park
To: "Chris Sanderson" <>, "jenny spry"
<>
Cc: "Birding Aus" <>
Received: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 6:22 PM
Any parent who's ever had a child threatened knows the feeling! I agree.
Great photo. Thanks Jen and also Chris.
Denise
on 21/1/11 10:34 AM, Chris Sanderson at wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We have put Jen's fantastic experience with the Grebes and Coots up on
> Bird-O:
> http://bird-o.com/2011/01/21/right-royal-%E2%80%9Cset-to%E2%80%9D-in-royal-par
> k/
>
> Jen that photo is amazing!
>
> Regards,
> Chris Sanderson
>
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 3:46 PM, jenny spry <> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>>
>>
>> With the first afternoon of sunshine in a while I drove to the storm water
>> basin in Royal Park, Melbourne, just near home. I had seen a family of
>> Australasian Grebe there and wanted some photos of their tiger-striped
>> chicks. The Grebe were still there and also a family of Coot, also just
>> itching to have their photos taken.
>>
>>
>>
>> The two families drifted around with their young, slowly coming closer
>> together, and I imagined the chance of a photo of both families
>> harmoniously
>> feeding young in the warm afternoon sun. Suddenly though, one of the coot
>> started screaming and paddling frantically backwards, spray going
>> everywhere. Huge fish I thought, or perhaps an enormous eel no, obviously,
>> a
>> crocodile someone had dropped down a local sewer (I've read about that
>> happening!).
>>
>>
>> What it actually was though was an irate adult Grebe that had felt its
>> chicks were threatened. It had dived and come up under the coot and it not
>> only attacked, but chased the panicked coot from under water for some 10
>> metres or more before surfacing and attacking again, from behind and above.
>> As a friend said when she saw the image; ³that is one agro bird!²
>>
>>
>>
>> I will put the image on the BOCA site tonight but right now I need to go
>> back out in the sun with a cup of tea.
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers all
>>
>>
>> Jen
>>
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
>> send the message:
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>> to:
>>
>> http://birding-aus.org
>>
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