THE PARADISE DUCK

Hokitika Guardian, 30 July 1932, Page 6

THE PARADISE DUCK

INTERESTING PARTICULARS. Few birds in any part of the world excel New Zealand s paradise duck in shamming injury in order to 'draw enemies away from nes’t, eggs or young. All plovers are experts in this respect, and members of other families are skilful in their methods; but both sexes of the paradise duck display the highest ingenuity and 'resource, aiid ard the most successful. A female paradise duck was seen waddling as if in difficulty. Her wings drooped and flapped. Her whole bearing seemed to cry aloud her anxiety to escape. All the time, she kept well in advance of the dog. As soon a,s the dog had been -Jured a. safe distance from the neist, she rose swiftly into the air and circled the dog, her supplicating cries suddenly changed to angry and defiant shrieks. Another paradise duck, with a wing ‘trailing sadly on the ground was followed for a hundred yards dr moiw, until it took full advantage of its splendid powers of flight. A sportsman wounded a- female paradise duck, which a harrier-hawk attacked. The male,' in a fighting spirit, gallantly beat off the hawk, but, when the sportsman approached, it changed its tactics in the face of the new enemy. Quickly abandoning its fighting attitude, it pretended to be wounded, and limped to safety, while its mate concealed herself in marshy vegetation There are no more devoted parents than paradise ducks. A resident of Otago was .commissioned to catch several young to send to Melbourne. Travelling on a waggon along n country road, he saw in a stream two adults and nine young ones. The adults, as usual, tried, by shamming lameness, to lure him away from their family. He caught three young, which he imprisoned in a small box on the waggon. I After going on for six miles he camped for the night. Early in the morning, on leaving his tent to look after the captives, lie saw near the waggon two paradise ducks, male and female. He told his mate that he believed they were the parents. To test it, lie plaoed the young ones on the giound. The adult,male immediately took charge and made off with them through Wild Irishman shrubs toward a river. Every few yards it rose in the air, perhaps to let the female know the course it took. No attempt was made to recapture the young. A tame paradise duck in fishponds at Mas’terton became very fond of the keeper, following him about ' and sitting on the ground in front of him, with outstretched neck, while it uttered purring notes, evidently expressing satisfaction. The paradise duck is a shelldrake, And - all shelldrakes -are fighters, during the nesting season at least. Mr H. Friedmann, Curator of the Division of Birds in the United States National Museum, New York, who recent! studied some aspects of uuck life, is good enough to state that New Zealand’s species, ini’ strength and combativeness, leads them all. He adds a note dn ia. character of thf paradise duck that has not beert recorded by many Ne\v Zealand observeis, although the paradise duck is as Wellknown as almost any other native bird in the Dominion. This is a pronounced development of maleness, a tendency for the females to become .male-like. Mr Friedmann states that in combats with foes, female paradise dueds often take the initiative, urging on the males 'with loud cries and excited movements.

11- Friedmann has used the paradise duck in discussing the strange development of parasitism among flicks. Many species of water hire's sometimes are surprisingly careless in laying their eggs. They sliow the characteristic vigilence in regard to their nests and eggs, but occasionally, for reasons beyond human conjecture, they lay an egg, perhaps several eggs, in the nest, nearby, of another bird, leaving it to incubate unci'to rear the young. The nest usurped may belong to a bird of the same species, or of another species. The great auk, now as dead as docio, did this. It is done by auklets, gulls, terns, rails, herons, and a few shore birds, but the habit is most pronounced among the clucks, although, apparently, it has not becai recorded among ;tny New Zealand members of the duck family. The black-headed cluck of the ' Argentine. This remarkable species is as parasitical as any cuckoo. Its nest has been searched for in rain. It selects, as foster-parents for its I young, swan, crested screamers, gulls, coots, ibises and rails. Its eggs have been found in even, of all places, the nest of a hawk. New Zealand’s shining cuckoo and long-tailed cuckoo always place their eggs in the nests of spi all birds. They victimise some of the smallest birds in the Dominion. Their eggs are at least twice: the size of the eggs of their favouritJS victim, the grey warbler. This principle, strangely, is present in the parasitism of . ducks, the parasitic ducks usually lading larger eggs than the eggs of ducks they parasite. The 1 abit is more pronounced in some species of d icks than in others. It reaches its climax in the ruddy ducks of North' America and their allies; its pinnacle is found in the black-headed duck of the Argentine.—J. S. Drummond, 0. L.S., F.Z.S.