Jon Morgan

I want to tell you the story of a duckling I saw the other day. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it, but it was very cute. It was walking along a concrete structure with its parent, then wasn’t able to follow said parent into the water. It ran back and forth cheeping with increasing distress, before eventually finding its way into the lake to the cheers of the human onlookers.

And that’s just one of many animal encounters I’ve had in the last week alone - some with other humans about, some by myself.

The duckling in question

Here are the photos. For the record, they span nearly four minutes, with the parent going into the water about the one minute mark.

As far as I could tell, the duckling seemed pretty comfortable around humans. Yes, I was standing as still as I could while watching, but it came within a metre of me. And it was a lot smaller than me…

T Its parent was less comfortable, and the first time the duckling backed off a little it went for the water:

I’m sure the idea was that the duckling would follow and then everyone would be happy. But there was still too much to explore for it to do that:

After more exploring it decided it really was time to head into the water. But it couldn’t figure out how to.

There was a lot of running back and forth. A lot of cheeping. A lot of getting near the edge without being willing to jump in.

After a couple of minutes this was the closest it got, and I really thought it was going to make it. But it drew back again.

By this time it had drawn a crowd of interested onlookers: A few parents with kids, a couple of retirees, a couple of young people with phones out filming it, and the token serious photographer with a real camera (that’s me!). Basically, people who happened to pass at just that time and were willing to take a few minutes of their Thursday lunch-time to see what this duckling did.

The more it hesitated, the more we were rooting for it to overcome the hesitation. It felt like at the swimming pool when there’s a hesitant kid at the end of the diving board. The longer they hesitate, the more you feel invested in them finally making it.

Eventually it found its way off the concrete and into the reeds, then was able to walk down the bank and into the water:

There were cheers - and then we all got on with our separate days.

Thinking about why this mattered, it wasn’t that that duckling was specially important or that it getting into the water would change the world. Perhaps we had empathy with the duckling trying to work up the courage to do something it needed to do that turned out to be difficult. Or perhaps it was just that it was cute. But there was a connection with the duckling and with each other. The encounter brightened the day.

My life contains many animal encounters like this: Some of them with other bystanders to share them, some of them where it’s just me watching. Where there are bystanders I might exchange a few words with them, but mostly I don’t write about the encounters. Perhaps I don’t even think much about them. They just go in my photographic vault.

So I wanted to write about this one - as well as some of the other encounters from the same week.

The ducklings I actually came to see

Surprisingly enough, that duckling wasn’t actually the reason I’d come to that particular park. I’d been there a week earlier, and had seen a surprisingly large group of ducklings, so wanted to check how they were going.

I’d walked round the lake without seeing them anywhere, and was just walking back to my car thinking I wouldn’t see them - then suddenly there they were, walking towards me:

I’d thought there were around 30 when I first saw them, and it looked like they were still all present (for the record, a bystander I talked to said he’d counted 32).

There were two adults clearly responsible for wrangling their many charges. But equally clearly the younglings weren’t all from the same clutch. Different ducklings had different ages, different sizes, and different levels of development (plus a little Googling had suggested the normal clutch size for wood ducks is 8 - 10).

I don’t know how the family had got together - I think that species is better known for aggression to ducklings outside the family than for adopting strays. But it was interesting to watch. The parents kept them together nicely - I’ve probably seen wood duck families with 5 - 10 ducklings that spread out more than these ones did (there’s always one that wants to go exploring).

Anyway, they were headed for the water, and once they were in, the ducklings seemed to be having a great time - diving and splashing about and swimming enthusiastically. Though I’d watch out for that one on the right:

With them in the water it seemed the parents had less immediate need to supervise them, so one got on with taking care of its wings:

Then made me think it was applauding itself and calling for an encore!

Some more photos

No matter how cute the ducklings were, they weren’t the only animals I saw there.

There was the noisy miner that decided to come over and inspect me:

Just after I’d seen it chase off a grey heron, too. Doesn’t it just look menacing?

In contrast, this magpie felt completely unthreatening. Just wanting a bit of water, I guess:

While I’d been watching the original duckling try to find its way into water I’d also seen in the background a crested pigeon chasing another pigeon with its tail displayed significantly. No chance to get a proper picture, but later I found this couple together. They look like they’re having a moment, then they suddenly recognise they’re being watched and become self-conscious…

At this time of year the park has a lot of roses out - and roses often also mean bees:

Finally, circling back to the ducks, this one didn’t look like it had any parental duties:

I guess it was probably muttering to itself:
Mirror, mirror, in the lake
Who is the fairest - duck or drake?

A nice park to visit

Overall, though, it’s a nice park - not round the corner from me, but still fairly local. I’ve been there quite a few times over the years, and each time is a bit different.

Just thinking this time of year, it was exactly two years ago that I was there admiring the ducklings as part of writing about new life. And it’s nearly three years since I was there on Christmas Eve queuing for a Covid test.

In previous years I probably did more walking there. Now I’m just too busy observing the wildlife and taking photos…

The day before

The day before I was just walking the local streets at lunchtime, and saw half a dozen brown birds hopping round among the thick branches. They were moving far too quickly to get proper pictures, but it looks like they might have been brown thornbills.

Later that afternoon there was a duck-like bird poking round my garden. I saw it there last week as well, so obviously it found something to like - but it’s not a bird I recognise or remember seeing.

Discovering Malvern

On Sunday in Malvern there were lorikeets about, and I never cease to be amazed by how much they can contort themselves in search of food:

Then on to Gardiner’s Creek, where I saw a family of Pacific black ducks, looking cute as always:

Plus later one frantic individual swimming furiously and looking panicked:

It was the youngest duckling I’ve seen this week, and I couldn’t see a parental figure. Very cute, still, but realistically I suspect if it didn’t find a responsible adult it might not have survived the night.

The early bird gets the worm!

Last Saturday saw me unexpectedly up for sunrise after a warm night (it had been in the mid-thirties Friday and was still around 25°C at sunrise).

There were kookaburras laughing, rosellas calling, and cockatoos screeching. It was just another reminder that while I don’t like getting up early, I do like being up early (Incidentally, I notice that was my 22nd sunrise this year, and I had 22 in 2022 - can I make it 24 in 2024?)

Finally, there was a kookaburra staking out my garden:

They can have such an intent stare when looking for food, whether on a branch structure:

or on the ground:

I watched it for a while. It didn’t seem bothered by me being about, and was certainly happy spending extended time on the ground hunting (where often when humans are around kookaburras go to tree with only brief dives for food).

Then, whether from ground or from tree, suddenly it would pounce and grab its prey (often a worm), and shake it repeatedly with their beak making cracking sounds before swallowing it:

I don’t think it got the memo that early birds should restrict themselves to one worm (and be grateful their punctuality allowed them to get that!) I must have seen it getting ten or twenty of them before it flew away:

And yes, kookaburras do laugh - particularly noticeably when they form a chorus around sunrise or sunset.

Something fishy

Later that day I was in the Botanic Gardens. And, what do you know? I was watching ducks again!

But stay - is there something underwater there?

Yes, there is!

There was even a turtle there:

(though the fish quickly came back to drive it underwater again).

More lorikeets - and more contortions!

The Botanic Gardens also had their own collection of lorikeets.

And what shows their upside-down nature better than the contrast these two show?

They’re quite pretty birds, no matter how they position themselves:

But they’re always very happy to go upside down on swaying vegetation if it gets them what they want:

Another day, another animal interaction

This post should have been published last night (spoiler: It wasn’t). What that means is I can add another story to it: I had a magpie-lark knocking on my window this morning. Several times over several hours, in fact.

I wasn’t up with the sunrise this time, so the knocking woke me up a couple of times. I couldn’t figure out what it wanted, but one time it flew off to a branch:

And another time it was foraging on the lawn (actually, there were a couple of them on the lawn):

And this afternoon I saw a couple of them in my neighbour’s garden - presumably the same ones…

Conclusion

So that’s a week’s worth of stories and photos (and if I went back more weeks, I’m sure I’d have more stories and more photos).

As I spend time walking, whether in our urban areas or somewhere more remote and natural, I see so many birds and animals. I see them hunting for food. Protecting and feeding their young. Squabbling over territory. Dive-bombing other animals, or otherwise making their discontent clearly known.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of “Unlike us sophisticated, thinking humans, animals just work by instinct”. No matter how strange their actions, I assume there’s a reason for it. Sometimes that reason will be specific to that particular animal’s past experiences and character, sometimes it will be a behaviour more general to their species. Sometimes I can guess the reason, sometimes I can’t (and obviously I can’t know if I’ve guessed correctly), but it’s interesting to watch and speculate and see the differences between different animals.

Mostly, the animal encounters I have aren’t particularly remarkable - things that happen to someone every day, no doubt. I’m just glad that so often that “someone” is me - it makes life so much more interesting!