São Jacinto’s ducks, February 25 – 27: few ducks, but still a lot of work to be done.

On my last of this winter’s visits to the ponds of São Jacinto we were confronted with a serious lack of ducks. Although on the first day of captures we still managed to ring and mark 23 Common Teals (excl. 3 recaptures) and one Mallard, but on the second day our traps only held two Common Teals, including one recapture. The Common Teal was pretty much the only duck species present in our pond during these days and their number was low. There was a more interesting number of ducks present further away in a second pond, including Shovelers, Gadwalls, Wigeons, Pintails and a single Tufted Duck. These birds were obviously not at ease. There was a constant presence of a Goshawk again, which managed to grab at least a single duck during our stay, but more importantly, stray dogs managed to find their way into the fenced area again. I suspect that these are the main reason for the ducks to almost completely abandon the main pond. Thanks to them on the second day of captures we could spend most of our time cleaning up more storm damage, clearing more of the invasive acacia and resight the few ducks that were still there. Hopefully by autumn things are back to normal again.