Take your marks, get set .........

These juvenile Coots were hugely entertaining this morning, the Parents were looking after and feeding their brood of four although clearly the youngsters were more than able to dive and find their own weed and vegetation.to consume.

They really are very attractive little birds, more attractive than their parents in my opinion and they were being very inquisitive and coming within fifteen feet of me with little concern being expressed.

Plenty of swimming and walking about in the margins with some vigorous flapping of their developing wings. 

All in all it was quite an intimate experience.

Coot - Life cycle

Coots must be one of the more noisy of our waterbirds, particularly in the breeding season when hormone levels rise and pairing up takes place.

Pairing up and mating is a pretty brutal affair for the females as the males chase them around and dunk them under the water, certainly not amorous in the slightest, I think the females just give up  and go with the flow. 

I am sure that we are all familiar with the long pattering runs made by the males across the surface of the water with flailing wings to '' see off '' competition, they are very territorial and aggressively defend their patch..

Having said that, when building their nests they tend to site them quite close to each other in the margins of the water body and it is not uncommon for a pair to have two or three clutches of  5-7 eggs.

Later in the year during moult they are a lot more sociable forming parties or '' rafts '', security in numbers when flightless. 

They certainly do have '' attitude ''.

                                                                        Quite dapper birds really                                                

     Noisy neighbours ....... Constant territorial fights and squabbles

The chicks are ... well .... not the prettiest of birds

But their mother loves them

As adolescents they are much more pleasing to the eye