It is that time of year, when birds are pairing up, building nests and going through their mating rituals.
There were lots of ‘couples’ out and about on the lake last week, and having watched and photographed a number of them, I did as I often do, went exploring on the internet to find out a bit more about the whole subject.
Monogamy is where a male and female pair for life, which is true of around 90% of bird species.
Most geese and swans fit this pattern.
However, most ducks are only “seasonal monogamists”, where the pairs stay together for a single breeding season to mate and then care for their young. Then they move on and will normally have a new partner the following year.
A small minority of ducks are polygamist, where there is no set mated pair, and multiple partners can occur over the breeding season. This is true of roughly 7% of duck species.
As well as the numerous pairs of ducks, I was lucky enough to see a pair of grebes go through their mating ritual.
It started with a pair of grebes calling to each other and then swimming to meet one another, at which point they started their ‘dance’. They faced each other and went through a sequence of lifting, bobbing and shaking their heads. Their crest feathers, which are on top of their heads and normally lying flat, came up and were displayed proudly to each other. It went on a couple of minutes before their necks were lowered and they swam off in different directions.
I was delighted to see this and capture some of it in these shots.
The only disappointment was that this time the moves were not even more dramatic, in a display known as the weed dance. In these cases, the two birds both dive down into the water and resurface carrying weed in their beaks. They then rush across the surface of the water towards each other and when they meet they rear up out of the water, paddling frantically to stay afloat whist performing their display. It only lasts a few seconds.
Maybe I will get to see it next week.
You can't see the pairs in my shot but it's clear that herons are also pairing up and nest building
The other stand-out from my walk was the black-headed gulls – now back to having a full black head (in winter the black markings reduce to just a spot on the side of the head.)
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