Woman stunned by duck sitting in 'huge eucalyptus tree': 'That is wild!'
A woman in Queensland was surprised to see a duck sitting high up in a large eucalypt tree.
A woman was questioning her sanity after spotting a duck perched in a tree several metres off the ground while going for a walk through Queensland bushland last week.
“Shocked” by what she believed was a bizarre sight, she filmed the brown bird sitting on the edge of a tree hollow, enjoying the sun’s rays in the Glass House Mountains.
In an attempt to figure out what was going on, the woman turned to a Facebook page dedicated to Australia’s native birds for help. “I’m not going crazy am I??? That’s some kind of duck up a huge eucalyptus tree, right?” she asked other wildlife enthusiasts.
'I love when people learn this'
While one person joked that it was a “peek-ing duck”, several members quickly identified the bird as a native wood duck — otherwise known as a maned duck or maned goose.
“Wood ducks are so cool! I remember the first time I saw them up the tree, I was shocked lol,” someone commented, to which the original posted responded “that was me!”.
“We see ducks waddling and paddling so often that we forget they can fly,” another added, while a third said: “I love this, when people learn that wood ducks nest and roost in trees.”
“A lot of our native ducks nest in trees high above the ground or lake. It’s how they survive predators. Not a lot of people know this,” one woman wrote. “That is wild! I just learnt all about the humble wood duck,” another surprised member revealed.
What is a wood duck?
Several experts confirmed to Yahoo News Australia that the bird seen in the video is indeed a wood duck and being perched in a nest so high is “normal behaviour”.
“The ducklings will jump out when still tiny and flightless, hit the ground, bounce a bit, then wander off after the parents,” Professor Martine Maron with the University of Queensland said, explaining that “many species of duck” nest in tree hollows, including the Australian shelduck and grey teal.
A Queensland Museum expert told Yahoo wood ducks are “well-known for nesting in tree hollows. Often at extreme heights”.
“Tree hollows provide relatively safe nest sites, out of the reach of many ground-based predators,” they continued. “The light-bodied ducklings cannot fly but possess a dense layer of down. They leap from the hollow shortly after hatching and the down functions as a shock absorber, cushioning their landing.”
Members of the Facebook group said seeing the ducklings launch themselves out of a tree for the first time had left their “heart in their mouth”. “Gotta keep an eye out for when the littles leave the nest…little yellow fluff balls making a big jump into life,” one man urged.
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