Australian Wood Duck (female and juvenile)
Peaceful, alert, and not at all shy. Surprising, since this city Duck and her partner originally brought ten newly hatched ducklings to the river. These Ducks nest in tree hollows, many feet above the ground, and the babies leap from the tree on their first day, parachuting their tiny weight down with their own fluff, and appearing to land quite hard, but getting up and trotting away nonetheless.
City birds then must often cross busy roads to bring their new families to the nearest water...but humans nearly always do what they can to protect them. I have seen young office girls in stiletto heels acting as de facto traffic cops for a family of wood Ducks!
Still, there are dogs, and bicycles whizzing through the barks at fantastic speeds, and even idiots who think a duckling might make a good pet, as well as more natural predators, such as Crows and Pelicans...so a family of ten can shrink alarmingly quickly, or even disappear altogether, if the parents are inexperienced or unlucky.
This sole surviving duckling continued to thrive, however.
