Wednesday, 22 April 2015

Nesting by numbers

Without really looking for them, I found a bunch of nests during a short walk around my Brussels patch earlier this week.  I counted at least five occupied Coot nests, three different Mute Swan nests, and one belonging to a pair of Canada Goose.  The eggs in the Grey Heron nest, which was started in early March, have finally hatched into a couple of prehistoric-looking, shaggy chicks, and the resident pair of Kingfishers were sitting around outside last year's nest tunnel so they could well be nesting again.  If only I had more time to survey the area thoroughly, it would be interesting to find out just how many occupied nests there are at the moment.  Our female Ferruginous Duck, however, here for three winters in a row, is all alone and has even been abandoned by her Tufted friends, leaving her with just the male Wood Duck for company. 
Now that would make an interesting hybrid!