As a postscript to the article and comments posted on ‘On Location in Cumbria: 3‘ from a few weeks back it was interesting to witness a female Mallard being raped at Llanelli today.
I was running the ‘Introduction to Bird Photography’ course at the WWT and was with some of the folk, who were attending, when the incident occurred. It sounds, from my account here, that it was in some way criminal and when Alan, a friend who has been with me on a good number of courses, said on his return to the hide, “Have the police come for the Mallards yet!”, it further emphasized our tendancy towards anthropomorphism. The attack went on for five minutes or so and was fascinating, whilst a little disturbing in a curious way. It’s a tough life, with little compromise in the natural world, and things ‘go on’ but we remain human with our own values that are at times applied, incorrectly, to this other world we so keenly observe.