Flight leader

Today I reminded myself of an old Peter Sellers film, “The running, jumping and standing still film”. I didn’t do any jumping; instead I did some walking and some jogging. There was certainly running and standing still. My leg has borne up well, and I got some good photos from Southend, Snells Beach around to Algies Bay, up to Highfield Gardens, and back to the beach house. A good circuit.

I’ve chosen this photo to blip as it shows the results of the interbreeding between the imported mallard ducks and the native New Zealand Grey Duck (Parera). The leader of this group is a mallard drake; the parera drake has the same appearance as the duck. The mallard has a yellow-orange bill, whereas the parera has a grey bill. The mallard speculum is purple with prominent white margins, and the parera’s is green with little in the way of a margin. The first three ducks look pretty much parera, but their facial markings are less clearly striped than the fully parera. It seems that most of the ducks are hybrids.


My bird book opined that the dominance of the mallard will result in the loss of the parera as a distinct species. That seems probable based on an examination of the characteristics of members of this group.