A walk in the park: Cygnets and Nutria
Nov. 1st, 2009 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragoness_eYesterday was a very nice day, so we went for a walk in LaFreniere Park. We brought stale bread and were looking for a swan and her little cygnets that we saw grazing at the edge of the canals last time.
This time, it took us quite some time to find the swan with the cygnets, as she was 3/4 of the way around the lake in the opposite direction that we started walking. On the way, we saw (and fed) lots of other interesting critters.
Black swan and baby nutria
This wasn't the right swan, but it was the first one we saw on our walk. This little baby nutria next to it has already learned one important thing about park visitors: they carry food. It turned around and climbed up on shore and started looking hopefully at me...
Black swan has important preening to do...
Meanwhile, the swan ignored us. It had important stuff to do.
Baby Nutria
In the meantime, I sat down on the ramp up to the footbridge across the canal, and the
little nutria came a bit closer, snuffling around in the gravel for dropped crumbs.
Baby Nutria, close-up
He got so close I thought he was going to come right up to my toes. Steve tossed some
bread down for him; he didn't dash for dropped bread the way the birds do, but would
come across it while snuffling along the ground with those whiskers.
Hi, I look like a wet rat
The round, rat-like tail suggests that this is a nutria, rather than a muskrat. Muskrats have vertically flattened tails.
Baby nutria with bread
When he found a piece of bread, he would pick it up in his paws and sit there eating it. Here you can see the distinctive fully-webbed feet, white muzzle and whiskers that identify our little friend as a nutria, not a muskrat.
Baby nutria eating, close-up
Other creatures came along looking for the bread we were handing out. The black swan 'pipped' at us once or twice, once it finished preening, as if to suggest that we should be feeding it, too. Unfortunately, it wasn't fast enough; anything we threw down that the nutria didn't find, this fellow rushed in to grab:
American White Ibis
There is a large flock of White Ibis at the park, and they have learned to look to visitors for free food. When they get a bit of bread, they will run to the water and dip it, softening and breaking the bread up into chunks they can gobble down.
Over to the water--
Ibis dipping its bread
When you toss bread near a flock of ibises, you get something like a feeding frenzy. Watching them all stab at the same spot with those long curved, pointy beaks makes me wonder how they avoid stabbing each other. They also make a funny noise when excited, like a skinny pig grunting, or like someone blowing through a blade of grass between their thumbs.
What? Food?
Attack food!
We haz coots!
We saw coots squabbling at each other. They make funny noises, too. At long last, we spotted the swan with cygnets, on the other side of the lake. Then we hiked over there.
Black swan and cygnets
Mama Swan (or possibly Daddy, hard to tell) saw us with bread and came over to our side of the canal with her cygnets.
Cygnets picking up bread
Mama swan carefully supervised the youngsters, at one point driving off a duck who came over and wanted to mooch off the free bread.
You can't see it here, but Mama Swan has interposed herself between the interloping duck and her cygnets.
Hi! We're adorable. Love us.
Mama watches closely
The babies peeped constantly while snarfing up the bread. Mama Swan every so often uttered a low, deep 'peep', sounding like she was chiding her babies.
In the following short movie (5.3 MB), you can hear the cygnets peeping at Mama Swan.
"Black Swan Cygnets, Peeping" by Dragoness Eclectic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.republicofnewhome.org.
This time, it took us quite some time to find the swan with the cygnets, as she was 3/4 of the way around the lake in the opposite direction that we started walking. On the way, we saw (and fed) lots of other interesting critters.
Black swan and baby nutria
This wasn't the right swan, but it was the first one we saw on our walk. This little baby nutria next to it has already learned one important thing about park visitors: they carry food. It turned around and climbed up on shore and started looking hopefully at me...
Black swan has important preening to do...
Meanwhile, the swan ignored us. It had important stuff to do.
Baby Nutria
In the meantime, I sat down on the ramp up to the footbridge across the canal, and the
little nutria came a bit closer, snuffling around in the gravel for dropped crumbs.
Baby Nutria, close-up
He got so close I thought he was going to come right up to my toes. Steve tossed some
bread down for him; he didn't dash for dropped bread the way the birds do, but would
come across it while snuffling along the ground with those whiskers.
Hi, I look like a wet rat
The round, rat-like tail suggests that this is a nutria, rather than a muskrat. Muskrats have vertically flattened tails.
Baby nutria with bread
When he found a piece of bread, he would pick it up in his paws and sit there eating it. Here you can see the distinctive fully-webbed feet, white muzzle and whiskers that identify our little friend as a nutria, not a muskrat.
Baby nutria eating, close-up
Other creatures came along looking for the bread we were handing out. The black swan 'pipped' at us once or twice, once it finished preening, as if to suggest that we should be feeding it, too. Unfortunately, it wasn't fast enough; anything we threw down that the nutria didn't find, this fellow rushed in to grab:
American White Ibis
There is a large flock of White Ibis at the park, and they have learned to look to visitors for free food. When they get a bit of bread, they will run to the water and dip it, softening and breaking the bread up into chunks they can gobble down.
Over to the water--
Ibis dipping its bread
When you toss bread near a flock of ibises, you get something like a feeding frenzy. Watching them all stab at the same spot with those long curved, pointy beaks makes me wonder how they avoid stabbing each other. They also make a funny noise when excited, like a skinny pig grunting, or like someone blowing through a blade of grass between their thumbs.
What? Food?
Attack food!
We haz coots!
We saw coots squabbling at each other. They make funny noises, too. At long last, we spotted the swan with cygnets, on the other side of the lake. Then we hiked over there.
Black swan and cygnets
Mama Swan (or possibly Daddy, hard to tell) saw us with bread and came over to our side of the canal with her cygnets.
Cygnets picking up bread
Mama swan carefully supervised the youngsters, at one point driving off a duck who came over and wanted to mooch off the free bread.
You can't see it here, but Mama Swan has interposed herself between the interloping duck and her cygnets.
Hi! We're adorable. Love us.
Mama watches closely
The babies peeped constantly while snarfing up the bread. Mama Swan every so often uttered a low, deep 'peep', sounding like she was chiding her babies.
In the following short movie (5.3 MB), you can hear the cygnets peeping at Mama Swan.
"Black Swan Cygnets, Peeping" by Dragoness Eclectic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.republicofnewhome.org.
