pacific black duck

Pacific Black Ducks

Pacific Black Duck

We drove to a different part of Herdsman Lake and this was the view we had. Lots of Pacific Black Ducks flocking there. I don't think I'd seen so many together before that. The reed bed in the background is actually a rather large island in the middle of the lake.

After passing some warning signs for the presence of Tiger Snakes, we then had another view from the path of the lake. And there was mummy duck showing her brood their new home.

Moving along the lake a bit the next little bay showed us a Pacific Black Duck. But wasn't the water a beautiful colour!

... yet here are two Pacific Black Ducks! The ocean at Perth is the Indian Ocean! I think these guys have lovely plumage markings. The male is larger, otherwise the sexes are similar.

Rounding another bend and a Pacific Black Duck came out to see us. I really do like the plumage markings on these ducks. The sexes are similar.

Continuing our wander round these ponds we next came across a Pacific Black Duck. Like the Mallard these are one of the dabbling ducks, which have a bottoms up feeding action rather than diving.

Strangely there were 3 ibis as well, further along that creek but they'd teemed up with Pacific Black Duck and Maned Duck.

After a while wandering the woodland, our necks had had enough, so we wandered down to the river bank. A few things about and here's a Pacific Black Duck paddling upstream (he'd initially been going downstream LOL).

I do find the Pacific Black Ducks have such lovely and intricate plumage and I just love how they apply their face make-up (and obviously the people who chose the scientific name were impressed too LOL! There sure seemed to be a wide variety of ducks on this lake.

Looks like these two Pacific Black Ducks were getting friendly... well it was Spring when I was there.

.... there has to be a Pacific Black Duck of course. Sorry to show you another one, but they are rather attractive ducks I think.

Oh no.... I don't think so, they're rather nice ducks, and rarely absent from any water body that I went to. I've posted this one as I like the green colours reflected in the water.

A feature I noticed when travelling through the Outback was all the watercourses had this brown-coloured water. At first I thought there had been a lot of rain somewhere upstread and it had stirred the water, but even still water was the same. Here's a Pacific Black Duck paddling past us as...

Looking at the water, Pacific Black Duck and Dusky Moorhen were passing each other.

The other of the two very common ducks around Adelaide.

They're really much more brown than black. Perhaps they were supposed to be Pacific Black-browed Ducks (see the Latin name) and that became too long. But oh well ... whatever the reason for the misnomer, they're quite handsome ducks, and another lifer already on day 1.

These ducks are so common you tend to ignore them, but they have beautiful feathers.

Have you ever seen a parent duck urging its babies to go and beg for food? This one did and the babies came right up next to me, of course no such luck. The ducks at Caroline Springs have people throwing heaps of bread to them and the people think they are doing the ducks a favour!!!!

Sue did a great job getting this close-up. These do cross with Mallards. This one could be a cross breed?