Double Promenades and Blue Swans?

When the Victorian’s became dissatisfied with the unreliability of the tide to come onto the Southport beach when they wanted to parade along the promenade - they build a second promenade inland from the first!

This was a massive feat of engineering as the two promenades were separated from each other by large lakes - all of which were engineered to be exactly 36” deep!

Ornate bridges were contracted at intervals too, so this was civil engineering on a scale that we will never see again!

These large lakes were used for various leisure activities and of course become popular with ducks and swans along with many other species of water borne birds.

These large expanses of water are also protected from excessive weed growth by copious amounts of blue dye that also colours the lower parts of the white swans BLUE!

The swans don’t seem at all bothered by it, and this cannot be seen when they are actually in the water, but when they come out of the water, it looks like they are wearing the colours of the local Everton Football Club much to the annoyance of the rival Liverpool Football Club whose colours are RED.

Bob.

@ChrisF Whatever it is that you have in your club water that deters ducks from wanting to live on it would be welcome in ours!

Can you sent a bottle of it up for analysis?

Bob.

@zooma We've got blue dye in the water at our club, as you say harmless as all it basically needs to do is block the amount of light reaching the weed.

Surprisingly, given where the lake is, on a farm in the countryside, I've only ever seen birds on it once, years ago. Pair of geese if I remember.

Surprising, because everywhere we go on walks or visiting National Trust property there is nearly always ducks on the water however small it is.

Hi Bob Duckdye I gain knowledge each 'n every day LOL Col

Dye in Water.

The strange thing about the ducks moving onto the club lake is that the water has a blue dye in it to help prevent weed growth.

Obviously the dye has not deterred them at all, and when I asked what was used to make the dye, I was told that it was a harmless food colouring .

…….obviously it is a flavour that appeals to ducks !

Bob.

@ChrisF
What a funny anecdote, Chris—you were visited by a cheerful little family.

@AlessandroSPQR They weren't there for long. Father perching on our back fence, which you don't see very often, and mother making use of the bird bath. They had nested in a bush resting on a shed roof a couple of gardens behind us which was surprising on a housing estate and nearest water about 0.5km away. They must have liked it though as they nested for 2 years.

There were more ducklings in the family and a neighbour collected them all up along with the parents and took them down to the canal. I also took photographs of the parents on the roof of a two-storey house behind us and in a puddle in the road! So nice to have them around.

My parents kept chickens and a couple of white ducks when I was young so I know what a mess they can make!

@ChrisF
Hi Chris, It’s wonderful to have them in the garden—they are magnificent.
You’ll see, though, that when they get big, they can make a bit of a mess if they don’t have plenty of space and large bodies of water. But if they’re free to come and go as they please, it’s a completely different story.

@zooma
Hi Bob, as I was saying, they are beautiful and delightful animals; moreover, our history is linked to the Anseriformes.
They weren't actually mallards but geese—though they belonged to the same family (Anatidae) and, naturally, the same order (Anseriformes).
Rather than history, I should speak of legend—or more accurately, "tradition"—specifically the one handed down by the historian Livy [Tito Livio].
As you surely know, in 390 BC, the Senones (a Celtic tribe settled in what is now the Marche region of central Italy), led by their king Brennus, attempted a surprise night attack to capture the Capitoline Citadel, where the last Roman defenders had taken refuge. The geese—the only animals left alive, having been spared because they were sacred to the goddess Juno—sensed the danger and began honking loudly. Their clamor woke the former consul Marcus Manlius and the soldiers, who managed to repel the attackers and save the citadel. Following this event, the goddess Juno acquired the epithet Moneta ("she who warns"), and Marcus Manlius earned the honorific title Capitolinus.

Tito Livio - Livy (Ab Urbe Condita, Book V, 47)
«Anseres non fefellere, quibus sacris Iunonis in summa inopia cibi tamen abstinebatur.»

Chris This so many ducks in LittleGrove but not the sign of any chicks Col

Mallards do migrate from other countries to the UK at this time of year which would explain the sudden increase in numbers by adding to our resident population.

I have photographed mallards many times and was very happy to have these ducklings in the garden.

Chris

@AlessandroSPQR I am sorry to hear about the unhappy ending for Pompeo and Crasso, but pleased that you enjoyed keeping them when you had them.

We have a lot of Mallard ducks locally, and as you suspected the ones that surround our boating lake appear to be “pairing-up” together.

Their distinctive colouring make it easy to identify the male and female birds from each other, and at the moment they are not causing us any problems and it is quite nice to have them around.

..…but hopefully they will “move-on” as some stage in the future as they can also be quite a nuisance in such large numbers.

The falling leaves from the deciduous trees that run along the same side of the lake that the model railway locomotives run along will shed all their leaves soon enough, and in the meantime as many as possible will be scooped up with nets by our club volunteers, so like the ducks, they will not be a long term problem.

Bob.

@zooma
Hi Bob, the mallard is an animal I adore, even though it’s very common around here.
I have a memory from my boyhood: I bought two ducklings at a fair and raised them while camping in Cilento (Campania).
They grew much faster than I could expand and raise their enclosure—so much so that they kept escaping—but people always brought them back to me, knowing they were mine.
Eventually, their area was larger than my actual campsite, but I wasn't charged extra because everyone found them charming.
They soon reached adulthood, and as you know, sexual dimorphism is very pronounced in this species, so it was easy to see that one was male and the other female. When I first bought them, I had named them Pompeo and Crasso, not knowing their sex.
At the end of the holiday, unable to take them back to my apartment in Rome, I left them with my grandmother, asking her to treat them well.
Some time later, I learned that she had cooked both of them. I was really upset about it at the time.


Leaves, brushwood, and surface vegetation are a huge nuisance.
Years ago, while boating on Lake Vico, a thick layer of surface vegetation completely jammed my propeller.
I had to haul the boat ashore and clear the propeller by hand.
In situations like that, having a fuse is a good thing.

DUCKS and LEAVES.

@AlessandroSPQR I visited the Southport Model Boat Club lake again this morning and can confirm that the ducks that are currently in numbers on our waters are MALLARDS.

Today they were mostly all on the far side of the lake sitting in the sun on the bank with very few being actually in the water.

As I was the only person with a boat in the water (other members were happily chatting inside the club room) I thought that I had a really good opportunity to give my orange AVANTI a run.

No ducks, no other boats - what could be better?

I launched my AVANTI several times, only finding that I had to limp it back to shore due to the propeller and rudder picking up LEAVES !

The lake and the far side embankment was covered in LEAVES, and this was just as bad (or worse) that having lots of DUCKS on the water !

Maybe the ducks didn’t like the leaves surface coating the water either?

Fortunately my Sea Commander (Kopy Kommander) was largely untroubled by all the leaves and I had a couple of good hours running the boat on the deserted lake, with only one or two stops to untangle the propeller and rudder when I changed the LiPo’s!

Bob.

@RossM
Yes, I saw it—absolutely hilarious, Ross. Luckily, they don't get hurt.

@zooma
If it's a mallard [Anas platyrhynchos], then the hypotheses change.
In Italy, it doesn't migrate; in northern European countries, it migrates. In England, I don't think it doesn't migrate, so those gatherings are due to something else: they probably do it precisely during this period to form new pairs. In fact, the gathering of numerous mallards in an artificial body of water in September is linked to the end of the moulting period (called "eclipse") and the start of the autumn mating displays, combined with the search for safety and easy food that a man-made pond can offer.
But the main question remains: why now? If it's normal behavior, why haven't they always done it?
Perhaps around your pond, even a few kilometers away, one of the previous late-summer gathering sites has become, for some reason, inaccessible and abandoned for the large gathering.

@AlessandroSPQR
If Alessandro or anyone else wants something really silly and completely off topic try Googling FLOCK OF CANADA GEESE LANDING ON ICE. Typical Canadians.

@AlessandroSPQR Sorry I am not a “twitcher” (UK term for a bird watcher) so I have no expert skills for identifying the type of duck with any certainty, but I think they may be Mallards.

I will check when I go to the club this week and ask those that know more about our feathered friends than I do and find out what type they are with a little more certainty and let you know.

Bob.

@zooma
Hi Bob, I think Ross hit the nail on the head.
They are migratory animals; it is migration season, and they normally gather in a suitable area to set off all together.
As far as I know, they prefer to depart in large flocks rather than small groups, which is why they congregate beforehand.
I recently saw a gathering of thousands of swallows near a dam.
It is normal for waterfowl like ducks to favor a pond or small lake as a gathering point.

Could you tell me the specific species, or do you have a photo of these birds?

@Fogwall can’t fix stupid!!!???

@zooma Not Ducks, and I may be making a load of assumptions here, but I wonder if anyone else has noticed this: many years ago I used to sail a a small electric powered tug at the long demolished lake at The Point on the Isle of Man. Occasionally I’d notice gulls swooping in low over it and skimming the water as though it was a real ship and then shooting back up into the sky. I used to wonder, 'Do they think it's real? Surely not.'

These days I sail at Eastbourne’s Princes Park (sharing it with Swans, Ducks, the odd Cormorant and more...) and have noticed gulls doing the same thing. Last week a juvenile came in low, skimming over the water and hitting the transom of my SLEC ‘Mr Tom’ model at speed (definitely a comedy build - cracking little boat) which was scudding up the lake, with an audible thump and lots of splashing and flailing of wings. It looked very discombobulated, collected itself together and flew off. No damage done fortunately, and I was glad they weren’t going in opposite directions! It didn’t look like a pre-meditated attack. I don’t think I’ve seen this at smaller venues such as New Brighton.

I’m wondering if, as both of these lakes were and are large and on the coast, the models confuse their depth perception and the gulls assume they are much further away than they really are.

There is an apocryphal tale of a German WWII pilot making this error when deciding to shoot up the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway which is of course, not full size. I don’t think he survived the resulting encounter with the ground.

Driveway Ducks
Little Grove WA
As few steps from the local boat club that's the Princess Royal Sailing Clum Albany
Col
Not my driveway my place is one block back

It is quite nice to see that the ducks also appreciate our really nice facility as much as we do.

As you suggest, it is just the time of year for them, but I have not seen quite so many here before.

They will probably disappear as quickly as they came, leaving only the resident few pairs of ducks that seem happy to share the lake with us most of the year.

In the meantime, it is quite nice to see them.

Bob.

Bob it's that time of the year down on the south coast, ducks every were, several pairs on my driveway each morning that really take their moving out of the way so i can move the car Col

Bob,
Could these ducks be migatory birds en-route?