I had an appointment in Glen Forest, about an hours drive away, late in the morning and to make the most of the petrol I decided to stop en route at Lake Leschenaultia at dawn. The weather was quite bleak when I got there – cold and damp with thick fog and virtually zero visibility. Knowing I wasn’t going to get anything to blog I decided to experiment and shoot some video.

 

 

A few hours later while walking back to the car a young woman walked past me at speed and commented on the seriousness of my camera. A few steps on she stopped and asked whether I’d seen and photographed the little duck. Always seeking local knowledge I asked which little duck in particular as there are quite a few species that call the lake home. She tried to explain that it was a very unusual little duck, completely different from anything she’d seen before. Oooh I thought – something new and unusual. She went onto say that she’d taken a photo with her phone and Googled it and found out that it was the Madagascan Duck. Now I was a bit sceptical as although ducks do migrate with the change of seasons it does tend to transcontinental as opposed to crossing large expanses of open sea. They also do it in large flocks, so if there is one there are probably hundreds. It would seem very unlikely that a single duck would have wandered so far off course as their navigation is pretty impressive. While trying to be helpful and say it was probably one of last summers fledglings she saw I was answered with I still have the photo on my phone. With that she quickly locates it and shows me the photo. It wasn’t a duck. It was an Australasian Grebe (Tachybaptus novaehollandiae). She seemed absolutely delighted with this information said goodbye and walked off.

 

On getting home I was a little bemused by the event and decided to Google the Madagascan Duck myself. It threw up the Madagascan pochard (Aythya innotata) which is an incredibly rare species of diving duck which was thought to have gone extinct in the late 1990’s. Some breeding pairs were later discovered and as a result of a captive breeding program there now is a small population of 25 individuals located on two small volcanic lakes in the far north of Madagascar. Whenever I see an Australasian Grebe I shall always think of the Madagascan Duck.