Birds never cease to amaze me. Whenever I begin to think that I have seen everything, they come up with another surprise.
I recently visited Perth in Western Autralia, primarily to see my daughter Samantha and her family, but what birder can go anywhere without doing a little (or a lot of) birdwatching?
A favourite spot of mine was Herdsmans' Lake, only half a mile from Sam's house. It never failed to provide a good selection of wetland birds, including pelicans, great egrets, spoonbills and ibis, as well as numerous geese, ducks, coots etc.
It is also home to the Tiger Snake, a highly venomous species that is reckoned to be responsible for the majority of human snakebite fatalities in Australia.
On this occasion I was scanning the lake with my binoculars when I noticed a pair of Pacific Black Ducks swimming parallel to each other, and about 60 cms apart. They were followed by a pair of Coots, a similar distance from each other, and about 1.5 metres behind the ducks.
At this point there is an extensive reed-bed about 200 metres from the lake shore, and the birds were swimming from this directly towards me.
Naturally, I was intrigued by this strange convoy, so I continued to watch and noticed that from time to time, one or other of the birds would peck at something in the water between them. Eventually, they got close enough for me to see that they were deliberately shepherding a Tiger Snake away from the reed-bed, where they presumably were nesting.
When the got to within about 10 metres of the shore the formation broke up and the snake was encouraged with a few farewell pecks to swim the rest of the way by itself.
The whole episode seems to me to be an extraordinary example of inter-species co-operation in the face of a common enemy. In addition, it showed that the birds knew that the snake could not strike at them unless it was on a firm surface, and they could therefore peck at it with impunity.
Double click on the picture for a clearer view.
Aren't birds amazing?
That's a great snake shot! We had a fabulous 8 months in Australia birdwatching, it's a great place to do it. Good luck with the blog.
ReplyDelete