Family life

This was actually a few days before I went to Devon... Along the track I saw a rook who was walking away rather than taking off. I thought it might be a young one. Before I got close, a second rook swept in between me and the first and flew over the youngster who then took off and, with some labour, flapped enough to follow her over the hedge. At that point a third came from the other side, calling, and followed them. I felt that they were a tight-knit little family.

I sat in one of the hides and watched the cormorants. The paler ones are younger, and I saw how they too copied older birds.

The coots were the most interesting. Two parents were feeding this chick, who would swim as fast as it could after one or the other of its parents. Then the male shepherded the female away with much clucking, not the usual angry-coot sounds, but something else. She went to the nest. He mated her, then fell off, face first, into the water. More clucking. Then he brought her a reed for the nest, she laid it down. The chick seemed deserted as the parents focused on each other and the nest.

After a while, they turned their attention back to the baby. As they continued to feed, the baby went to the nest to have a rest.