Coot children look like something invented by Hieronymus Bosch. This is an advanced little coot, who can slurp up slime all by itself.
And this little coot still has his slime fed to him by his parents. He waits eagerly, a fuzzball of color in the dreary pond.
These coots are all residents of the Wandsworth Common.
Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to take a very nice, if very wet, trip to London. Because of the terrible weather I wasn’t able to do too much birding, but I did manage to spend a morning watching parenting of all kinds in the Wandsworth Common. I only photographed the avian parents, but all the while a number of humans were engaged in pretty similar activities behind me.
This mallard mother was mad at the coot for getting too close to her ducklings. The coot was trying to get the best pond slime for its own children, and wasn’t too happy to be pushed around by the mallard. They made a big fuss about the whole thing.
This is what an angry coot looks like. I don’t think the mallard was too impressed.
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend some time in London. I had meant to be a good tourist and see the famous changing of the guards in front of the palace, but I got distracted by the incredible numbers of royal waterfowl in St. James Park. Anyway, I was happier to watch these avian guards parade around than those funny human ones. The great white pelicans shown above were strutting down the path, keeping an eye on everything and everyone just like old police officers. Continue reading
The last few days have been exceptionally grey here in Berlin. So to cheer myself up yesterday I went to visit my old colleagues at Allianz Climate Solutions for lunch.
I used to work near the very top of this tower, the tallest building in Berlin. I had an incredible view from my office and would see many birds, migrating or hanging around in the Spree, making concentration rather difficult! After lunch yesterday I decided to spend some time with the birds that I used to only watch from afar. Treptower Park is right next to the tower, so I took a little walk there. Continue reading
Today was the first full sunny day in as long as I can remember. We have had a few hours of sun here and there over the past few weeks, but it has always passed quickly and never seems to totally dispel the gloom. But today was different, and I took advantage of it by taking a meandering route on my errands. First I stopped by the gathering in the Spree, to check on the usual crowd. I didn’t see the little grebe this time, but everyone else was there. A man on the opposite bank was throwing bread in the water, so the whole mass of birds slowly moved into his vicinity, making quite a ruckus on the way. The coots are very funny when they decide to fly. They begin by running along the water, kicking it up behind them, and flapping their wings like mad. When they finally alight it seems a marvel that they can fly at all. Above is a photo of one of the coots about to take off. Continue reading
Today I returned to the congregation on the river and was surprised to find not only that the location and number of birds seemed to be the same, but also that all of the individuals I recognized from the day before were bobbing around in roughly the same places in the water. The splotchy hybrids were still keeping together on the far end of the group, and a recognizable coot with an injured wing was keeping close to the very same bit of shore as yesterday. The neat little group of tufted ducks must have been swimming all day to stay in the very same spot. So it appears that waterfowl are creatures of habit this time of year. I think that it is a lucky thing to find recognizable individuals among the masses, as it gives one a feeling of connection to an otherwise strange group of foreign creatures, all indistinguishable from one another. Continue reading
When I woke up this morning I had an itch to look at ducks. This time of year is good for finding rare or unusual ducks hiding out in larger groups of more common waterfowl. So today after coffee Ilarion and I walked along the Spree until we found a large gathering of birds bobbing around together in an elbow of the river not far from our apartment. Continue reading