Tuesday, June 01, 2010

GOOSANDER BROOD 2

Saw a female with young in the distance Mon am and this morning found her close up with 7 young and these look about 4/5 days old, hope to post a photo later. A great 2010 for Calderdale Goosanders.
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2 comments:

David Tattersley said...

Hi Mike

You obviously can't go birding without bumping into Goosander these days!

Apparently it is not unusual for female Goosander to nest communally on more traditional breeding grounds and for a female to leave their young for a few hours only a few days after leaving the nest site as they are quite capable of feeding themselves.

It is quite normal therefore for the juveniles of one brood to join forces with another brood from a different female when a female disappears even for a short time so it seems likely that the 14 young you first saw with a female was probably not one brood but more likely two as the maximum number of offspring is usually no more than 10 and more normally around 8.

Presumably the juveniles you saw this am were smaller than the 17 you saw the other day so the likelihood is that a third female has bred in that area.

Goosander clearly like the R Calder around here as another female was seen with 6 juveniles (not by me!) near Colnebridge SP over 2 weeks ago.

I have seen the female on a couple of occasions since but not with any young nearby but that is not unusual apparently so it would appear at least 4 females have bred successfully in the area if my calculations are correct.

It is interesting that the majority of males depart before the middle of April and leave the females to get on with it, although I have seen a male recently with a female further east along the R Calder out of the HBC area.

4:25 pm
Mike Henshaw said...

Hi Dave

I am also of the opinion that the 17 strong brood is from 2 seperate females and yesterdays find is no 3 brood .Nice to know you are still reading the blog and look forward to bumping into you down the pits sometime.
As you say this is good news for the R Calder for both areas.

7:47 pm

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