Royal “set-to” in Royal Park

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; “that is one agro bird!”

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

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