More!!

What do they look like?! Tiny new born little balls of fluff, very cute but they rather remind me of vultures in minature - not the prettiest chicks ever but oh so colourful.

Hard to believe seeing this picture of domestic bliss that Coots can be such aggressive birds. They have a highly developed territorial sense and are incredibly quarrelsome!

However today on the canal Mum was sitting on a nest - six eggs had hatched with a few more underneath still not yet popped! The nest was located right in the middle of the water made of reeds and Dad was paddling round getting food and coming in to feed the youngsters - under the close supervision of his better half. He was bringing in tiny morsels of food - they eat roots of water plants but also nymphs, corn, seeds, small fish, insects and tadpoles.

Lovely to watch .... difficult to photograph because of the reeds! It wasn't until they came out onto the water with Dad that I could really get any sort of shot! Cute coots :))