Hi all the Wood Duck that nest somewhere near my workplace (which is a campus with areas of open grass and ponds) in northern Sydney, having raised at least one brood this season, showed up on site yesterday with 7 small and newly hatched ducklings. All the material I have found indicates that they are late spring/early summer breeders outside the tropics, so this is obviously a late batch – I will keep an eye out on their progress. Is such late nesting normal? Cheers Tom Wilson
PS – people at work keep referring to “baby ducklings” – I have told them that a duckling is a baby duck, and that a baby duckling is otherwise known as “an egg”.
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================
Comments
3 responses to “Late Wood Duck Nesting”
Philip & others these ducklings will be dependent until well into April, if not even May I would suspect. I know what you mean about ATM Machines etc – the “egg” comment was made very much tongue in cheek but in as deadpan a way as possible. Tom
According to the COG Atlas (in ACT) dependent young occur from July to February. Then again, in a wet year, extensions are hardly surprising.
Yes, of course “baby ducklings” is redundant, just like people say: HIV Virus, ATM Machine, BAS Statement etc. These are all wrong and dopey word uses. But little point getting too excited about this.
Philip
Hi Tom/ Mandy, I have Little Wattle, Willie Wags nesting currently the third nest for the LW.