Spring time in the wetlands brings an abundance of photographic opportunities. Yesterday we visited the Queen Elizabeth Park and spent some time at the wetlands. Our plan was to watch and photograph a family of dabchicks, and that is exactly what we did. The dabchicks or weweia were so cute and it was exciting to see they had babies on board.
Dabchicks or weweia are a part of the grebe family. They are water birds who create floating nests and do not walk on land. In another week or so, the dabchicks will no longer have babies on board, as they grow old enough to swim and dive confidently on their own. The parents will still feed them but they will quickly grow too big to be carried on their parent’s backs and will increasingly start to become more independent.
I enjoyed watching the parent birds passing food to each other before feeding it to the babies. One of the parents would dive for the food and then bring it to its partner so they could feed it to the babies. At one point we watched them swap jobs with the babies thrown off one parent, and they quickly climbed back onto the other parent’s back.
