This afternoon I watched some very young Moorhen chicks being fed. Sometimes an immature bird from an earlier brood this season would take food from an adult and give it to a small chick. I don¹t have HANZAB and wondered if this is usual within Moorhen families. Could anyone enlighten me?
Thanks,
Sonja ===============================
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Dusky Moorhens typically feed each other – I recall similar surprise at the Dusky Moorhens in the Botanic Gardens many years ago, where the sequence went: Picnic meal for humans attracted Dusky Moorhens to lake bank. Bread was thrown to them. Probable male, out on the bank among our feet – fed probable female, in the water by the edge – ‘she’ fed some immature birds (brown, no colour on beaks) swimming nearby – they swam further out and fed two young babies, well out on the water. Sometimes the male fed the immatures while the female was finding bread in the water. Members of a different DM family group were noisily chased away.
I wrote this up in ‘Australian Bird Watcher’ (Vol.6, No. 8, Dec.1976)’Multiple Feeding by Dusky Moorhens’. I was unaware that this behaviour in Coots and Moorhens was in fact well known and mentioned in British bird-books.
Perhaps this behaviour is most likely in places where there is plenty of food. I would not now encourage feeding bread to birds.
Anthea Fleming
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