LATE NESTING OF DUCKS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14916, 14 March 1914, Page 15

LATE NESTING OF DUCKS.

To Mr J. Macdouald, who resides near Orari Bridge, I am indebted for the following interesting '"scrap" concerning the late nesting of grey ducks. Bordering the brook known as Cooper's Creek is a pine plantation, and when passinc that way on Saturday—7th March—Mr Macdonald found himself startled by a grey duck which suddenly flew out of a i>ine tree close above his head. As a rule one does not expect to flush grey ducks out of a pine tree, but making* this caso of late nesting the moro unusual, the nine eggs were lodged in a hollow —about seven feet from the ground—close to the tree trunk, whore a big branch had been half broken away. Tho manner in which the ducklings will descend probably will remain unseen. I have been informed by a witness of the feat that a tree-nesting Paradise duck brought her young down one at a time on her bock. In a case recorded in "Tlie Field" some score of years ago, wild ducks nested in a tree in a London park, when evidence was at hand to prove that the ducklings just dropped out of the nest, and their lightness and fluffiness prevented any harm from the fall.