This video of a female Shelduck, leading her young from her burrow in a Devon sea-cliff, was shot on 2 June 2019 and broadcast by AutumnWatch on 1st November 2019. Some 5 years earlier when walking the South West Coastal Path, I had watched a pair of Shelduck slope soaring the cliffs with consummate ease. These ducks are generally known to frequent muddy estuaries and foreshores and to see them here behaving in that way was not something I have ever seen before. I then noticed the large burrows in the glacial till layer that overlay sheer 30m cliffs. Some of the the smaller burrows were occupied by Jackdaws, a few by Fulmars and a few by rabbits. But not the larger burrows.
Two or three years later I explained my theory that the Shelducks were breeding on the cliffs to another photographer. As far as I know this had never been observed and recorded previously. Over the bank holiday he sent me photographs of a family of Shelduck swimming along the coastline towards the nearest river estuary. We had proof of breeding at last.
Over the years I had observed the courtship behaviour of the breeding pairs and non-breeding birds, and the early morning activity during incubation. The birds, who are nidifugous, do not feed their young on the nest and must escort them to a safe feeding marsh within about 36 -48 hours or so of hatching. The young defend themselves against predators by diving once in deep water: otherwise the parent birds (usually the male) will attack and chase predators like Great Black-backed Gulls and Carrion Crows). I surmised that the ducks would only attempt to lead their young down to the sea at high tide as they would otherwise be very vulnerable to predators as they crossed the exposed rock platform to the sea at other states of the tide. Usually, the male will swim in to the rocks below their nest site when hatching was imminent or in progress. And thus on the morning of the 2nd June the male gave me the necessary signal.
Unfortunately, during there day a vigorous cold front passed through. The wind had picked up as had the sea state. It as necessary to shelter my camera and myself from the wind and the rain. Fortunately I had an old golfing umbrella. After several hours of watching in the late afternoon I was close to giving up. Out of the corner of may eye I suddenly saw movement. Something large and white. I watched as I saw what I thought was the male flying to and fro the nest burrow, I assumed impatient o check on progress. But I was wrong. The male had completely disappeared. It was the female Shelduck. After a number of such visits to the burrow she suddenly appeared on a lower part of the cliff with all her young. I did not see if she carried them there one by one or if they were obliged to jump.
This film is the story of what happened next.
Негізгі бет Shelducks VT Michael Woodman Smith
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