Coot update - they're growing fast!

My Editor & I had a walk to Killingworth Lake again to update ourselves (and any blippers who are following their progress) on how they're doing.

(In case you've missed "the story so far", we started with the mother on the nest, followed by the newly hatched chicks) and last week we noticed that they were growing fast - see the second extra here.)

So here they are a week later: bigger again, more adventurous and getting a little more independent (especially the one at the top left of the photo!) but still needing Mum & Dad to keep feeding them (probably more than ever now!). And they've almost completely lost their orange colours.

They're still using the nest, and one of the parents (?Dad) was doing some running repairs to it, probably following the windy weather yesterday. So the collage in the extra shows him picking up a stick, half flying and half running with it to the nest, and placing it carefully in place. It's hard work being a parent with kids and a home to look after!

Last week we counted 7 chicks, this week we only saw 6 - we hope one was hiding, although maybe sadly one didn't make it through the week.

We hope to be back there again next Sunday - watch this space :-))