14 Wednesday May 2025
Posted in birds
I have decided that an appropriate caption for this photograph of these adorable Mallard ducklings, where one appears to be saying something to its sibling, might be: ‘Has she moved yet? This seems to have been going on forever!’
Well, little duckling, after two delays by my buyer, today is finally the day!
27 Thursday Jun 2024
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Coot, Coot chicks, Mallard, Mallard ducklings, Tufted ducklings
As well as the Red-eyed damselflies I wrote about yesterday, my wander around Cardiff’s inner city canals also produced sightings of some delightful young birds and I had a wonderful time watching their antics, and their interactions with each other and their parents.
Three tiny Coot chicks were having a little swim with their doting parents. The chicks looked very young, were still relying on their parents to feed them, and, after about 15 minutes, the parents took their little family back to the nearby nest to preen and rest.
There were also two broods of Mallards, both with their mothers supervising them as they whizzed along the canals, nibbling at the weed, wobbling across lily pads. One mother Mallard had a brood of four ducklings, the other just one surviving chick.
18 Thursday Apr 2024
Posted in birds
Not content with quacking at me from the water below the boardwalk where I was standing, this very handsome male Mallard decided he would improve his chances of successfully begging for food by flying up and perching on the boardwalk’s handrail. First, he tried smiling at me – at least I think this is meant to be a smile …
When that didn’t work, he waddled carefully towards me and quacked very loudly …
Unfortunately for him, I didn’t have any food with me, but I did take the opportunity to take quite a lot of photos as he posed.
02 Saturday Dec 2023
Tags
bird on ice, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, female mallard, icy pond, Mallard
After a few sub-zero-Celsius nights and not much higher daytime temperatures, the pond at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve had mostly frozen over, and the Mallards and a Coot were sticking to a small open area on the far side. But, when a couple arrived with food for the birds, Ms Mallard was tempted out of her little patch of unfrozen water to reach the treats. I felt a bit mean but I couldn’t help laughing at her slip-sliding her way across the ice.
11 Tuesday Jul 2023
Tags
I have a ton of photos of Mallard ducklings but I just couldn’t resist taking a few shots of this little cutie that was snoozing with its mum and three siblings on the water’s edge about 20 feet below me. At the very least, the angle, looking straight down from above, gave a different perspective to most of my other duckling photos.
02 Friday Jun 2023
Posted in birds
I don’t often venture to the lakeside nearest the entrance to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park (too many people), which is perhaps why I didn’t see these two broods of Mallard ducklings when they were younger (or their mothers may, previously, have been keeping them safely hidden in the reeds). One mother and her three youngsters were enjoying a snooze in the sunshine. The other, with her six ducklings (well done that mother!), was being a little more adventurous, perhaps hoping visitors would sprinkle some seed in the water for them all to feed on.
22 Thursday Dec 2022
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birds with orange legs, birdwatching, British birds, Goosander, Mallard, Redshank, Turnstone
As a follow up to yesterday’s post about our local Redshanks, I thought I’d write about those legs, which, to my eye, are orange not red. A few months ago, I wondered aloud on social media why so many birds have such bright orange legs and was informed that, on a recent episode of the BBC’s Winterwatch television programme (I don’t have a tv so didn’t see it), it had been suggested that orange-coloured legs ‘are effective in disturbing benthic creatures when feeding/stirring the sediment’.
Another idea suggested on the Canadian Science.ca website is that ‘bright orange feet may reveal that the male is good at foraging (carotene comes in the diet)’, though the writer of that article also acknowledged that there may be several other factors at play, and that scientists don’t actually know the answer to the fascinating ‘why orange feet?’ question. So, if you have your own theories, or verified scientific knowledge, please do share in the comments.
28 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve, comparison between Gadwall and Mallard, Gadwall, Mallard
It’s quite unusual for Gadwall to spend time at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve and for them to be so confiding and so consistently in the company of Mallards rather than their own kind, so this little beauty may well be the same bird that visited the reserve back in March 2021.
Yesterday, she was puddling about right next to the boardwalk, which gave me the perfect opportunity to take some comparison shots with a female Mallard: Gadwall images on the left, Mallard on the right. Female ducks can be tricky to tell apart but you can see here that the differences in their body shapes are quite distinctive.
25 Monday Apr 2022
Posted in birds
Though Mallard ducklings were seen by other birders as early as the end of February, these little beauties were my first of the year. Eight little bundles of fluff and their mother were tucking in to a soggy slice of bread thrown to them by some boat owners in a local marina. Awwwwwww!
29 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in birds
We all need a little cuteness from time to time, so I hope you enjoy this photo, taken recently at Forest Farm Nature Reserve, of Mrs Mallard and her three ducklings snoozing on a log on the Glamorgan Canal.
earthstar 
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