During these three days I assisted David Rodrigues (http://www.pt-ducks.com ) again in trapping and marking “patos” at the São Jacinto duck pond. Our captures were reasonable, at least in my opinion, with about 40 or so new Common Teals Anas crecca in our traps, as well as a few recaptures. Additionally, two Little Grebes Tachybaptus ruficollis and two Common Moorhens Gallinula chloropus ended up in our traps, of which only one Moorhen carried a ring. Considering the number of Little Grebes and – Moorhens that have been ringed at the pond during the last months, it was a bit surprising we only got only one recapture among these four birds. I suspect that most of our previously ringed birds were migrants and these are now elsewhere (although some Moorhens may have ended up as Common Genet Genetta genetta food it seemed)
Most of the
Mallards have dispersed by now, which considerably reduced the amount of time
we needed to spend on our captures. This gave us to opportunity to clear up the
trails from numerous fallen trees and other storm damage. I also trimmed some Acacia longifolia, a fast growing invasive,
which after a recent forest fire has almost completely taken over the reserve (https://estudogeral.sib.uc.pt/bitstream/10316/18181/1/HeliaMarchante%20PhD%20thesis.pdf).
Its flowers are very nice, however…
Although there
was not much diversity in our captures, the number of duck species present at
the pond was large; especially Eurasian Wigeons Anas penelope and Gadwalls Anas strepera are
abundant at the moment, but we also observed an interesting number of Northern Shovelers
Anas clypeata, as well as
a few Tufted Ducks Aythya
fuligula. Unfortunately, none of these ended up in our traps.
A marked
Tufted Duck on the left and on the right my first observed marked Gadwall.
Eurasian Coots Fulica
atra are common in São Jacinto’s ponds and nest there. David informed me their first clutch usually is succesful, but later layers will face low water levels and eventually the stray dogs.
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