The African white-backed ducks lay!
The African white-backs are everyone's favourite duck here in the Duckery. The white back is usually the most seldom seen part of their plumage; until now!
They have started to lay their very distinctive shiny brown eggs. This causes one of the most amazing attitude transformations; as they turn from shy little divers into aggressive little tigers! As I found this wonderful nest last week (with a little space left for 2 more!) this male was giving me a proper telling off. They fluff up and charge at you with their beaks agape as if into the jaws of an advancing army. This brilliantly defensive pair (female below) have everything it takes to keep their nest safe from avian predators. We have every trust that they will look after their eggs during the incubation process for the future of the species at WWT Slimbridge. The difficulty has been getting them to lay at all! The species has proven very difficult to sex, and for much of 2012 we embarrassingly had same sex pairs in our breeding aviaries; oops! Now that this has been formally rectified, I'm chuffed to see these little gems laid. This is half the battle though, so join me in crossing fingers for fertility :)
