First 'Freck' news of the season.
I love a Freckled duck, and the first Frecks of 2015 graduated today!
After a breakfast of porridge (their favourite way to eat...) we waited for the heavy rain to pass before collecting them up into a crate and transferring them to a graduation pen inside one of our Poly-tunnels. Here they would meet their future "pen mates" and spend some time socialising with other species over the summer.
They are just beginning to be sexually dimorphic as the males' beaks are now visibly longer than those of the females. They are developing their classic bolshiness; otherwise known as a categorical need to maintain their own personal space or "bubble" through the means of grumpy hissing. It often sounds like they are having a fight to end all fights but when we run on over we find that they are at the opposite side of the pen just shouting at each other!
Today these 8 Frecks met 5 Fulvous whistling ducks and 7 Puna teal for the first time. When introducing new birds into the same space it is always worthwhile to introduce the youngest/smallest first, and then add the larger. Thankfully, today everybody made friends!
I managed to capture a Freck dispute below, in fact you can see the "attitude" just dripping off them. For whatever reason the disagreements are always amongst the females. I'm constantly making interesting observations about Frecks and i'm pretty certain that they are a female dominated species.
The adult males are exceptionally keen to impress during the breeding season and are incessantly displaying by "cheeping" and head bobbing but are never aggressive to the females. It is often said in the wildfowl world that the females do the choosing and it is certainly true here. Even the Freckled duck male makes the nest for the inspection and judgement of the female. During the laying process he will be on hand to make minor adjustments and he will often sit alongside the nest until the female begins to incubate. Whilst the males do no actively defend their females on the nest they will prove very attentive. The male Freck then is a real gent :)
Hopefully these handsome guys n gals will grow up to be as wonderful as their parents. They're certainly in great shape!
