Psilos Bird Journal
Thursday June 1st 2006
     
"Nursery babies "
Took Ben to see the Black winged stilts today. Previously there were three birds, one pair and a spare male but one of the males has now gone and has been reported in Worcestershire. The female is now sitting on a nest, incubating four eggs which if all goes smoothly are due to hatch around the 9th of June. Sadly the photo below is very poor as the nest is so very far away and the bird wouldnt cooperate and turn round. I promise it is the stilt and records a truely historic event. There is a 24 hour watch on these birds.
 
 
Apart from the stilts there is a total lack of any other interesting wild birds around so I make for the park. This week the nursery is open so I go and look at the ducklings. I am in luck as they have some White cheeked pintail ducklings (photo below) and I havent photographed any of these before.
     
White cheek pintail
     
Apart from the common species they also have a set of mystery ducklings (photo below)and as usual there is noone around to help out with an id. Looking at their blue bills and legs I can only hazard a guess at Philippine duck.
     

 
Other collection babies in the park include two Coscorobo Swan cygnets. Two years ago these birds produced two babies but only one reached maturity. Last year they produced one cygnet but it died whilst still young. Fingers crossed that these two youngsters will make it. The cygnets here are approx two weeks old.
 
 
The South African Shelducks also have two ducklings this year where they didnt produce any last year but sadly I couldnt get any photos. There were plenty of Common Shelduck babies around but the light just wasnt in my favour!
 

Sitting quietly on its own under a bush I noticed this juvenile Moorhen that is almost fully grown.
Today there was another batch of two very young Hawaiian geese goslings but the other goslings born earlier in the year are quite well grown now and are quickly developing their first adult feathers.The bird below is about ten weeks old.
 
For the first time in over a year I noticed a male canvasback on Swan lake.
canvasback male
 
This female Mandarin hiding near some bushes was also beautifully lit.
 
 
This male teal who was on the alert was also a bonus as we rarely see these around.