Cotton Pygmy-Goose at Avifauna, 04/06/12

Nettapus coromandelianus coromandelianus

The drawback, if you can call it that, of being a regular at Blackbrook and Slimbridge is that it quickly becomes a rare thing to see a new species of waterfowl. Avifauna had a few bird firsts for me this time round but these have to be my favourite.

Thanks for posting this,I think I need a trip to see these as it has to be one of the few species of waterfowl,thats about in Europe that I have not seen.

This and the kiwi (of which more in due course) were the two big draws that brought us to Avifauna - and we had a bit of a scare with this one. We were expecting to find them in the 'Philippine House' run of indoor exhibits in the corner of the park, but entering from the end near the parrots we got halfway through the house, were about to enter the room we believed them to be in and... found a massive building site. Erp! After looping around the outside past owls and through the kiwi exhibit, we found we'd misremembered how many sections there were to the house and the final section was still accessible from the other end! It's really only thanks to some nondescript aviaries on the outside that we found the entrance at all - and if we hadn't we'd have missed out on the pygmy-geese, Buff-banded Rail and Rufous Hornbills, among others. Very glad we didn't!