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Tough times requires therapeutic birding with cuteness overload!

     
Avocet Chick

Its been a very tough week this week. Our lovely horse Finn, my personal favourite,  had to be put to sleep. With his heart giving out he stopped eating and there really was no alternative but to do the right thing by him.

 

On Friday I decided a day out birding  was required to cheer me up and, with nothing to temp me to go further afield, I opted for a chilled out visit to Slimbridge. In terms of new ticks for my UK list, its been a slow year so far with just 5 additions, all major rarities:- Northern Waterthrush, Social Lapwing, Indigo Bunting, Collared Flycatcher and Bridled Tern. Last year really was an exceptional year for great rarities in the UK so I guess its back to normal in 2024!

 

Taking my usual advantage of the members early access privilege I took a slow walk along the hides towards the Summer Walkway. The Rushy was alive with new beginnings with good numbers of Avocet chicks in various stages of development. Subjectively at least, the Avocets seem to have had a good breeding season. Along with most waders, Avocet chicks are precocial meaning that they are immediately able to fend for themselves upon hatching. This is a wise strategy when your birth nest is little more than an exposed scape in the ground. They are so advanced at birth compared to most helpless and prehistoric looking passerines due to a much longer development phase in their eggs, typically 4 weeks c.f.  the blue tit at around 2 weeks.

 

The chicks really are the most adorable little things. A ball of fluff with a small typically upturned bill  mimicking that of their parents which they use to feed while always being under the watchful eye of mum or dad.

 

The first Green Sandpipers have arrived back from their Artic breeding grounds. These are likely to be either failed breeders or females which abandon the males to all parental duties once the eggs are laid.

   



Green Sandpiper

Looking out over the tack piece I was momentary confused by a trio of Egrets with fresh white plumage and long pink bills but their strange crooked necks soon gave the game away, these were juvenile Great White Egrets fresh out of their nest.


Juvenile Great White Egrets

A slow amble along the summer walkway took me to the shepherds hut at mid-point where, rather remarkably, a scarce male White-spotted Bluethroat has returned for a fourth consecutive year in the fruitless search for a mate. These are scarce passage migrants which do not breed in the UK so heaven only knows why this poor chap keeps coming back to Slimbridge. Its hard not to feel sorry for him as you watch him sing his heart out from one of his favourite perches in the futile pursuit of love. I hoped he would come and sing to us from a row of fence posts near to us but on this occasion he aways kept his distance so here, as is traditional, is one I took earlier.


Bluethroat Willow fen 2017


Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!  



Comments

  1. UnrepentantJune 23, 2024 at 4:15 AM

    Sorry to hear about your horse Jim

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 23, 2024 at 11:38 AM

    Lovely photos as usual. I am really sorry about your horse. I am sure that he was a great friend.

    ReplyDelete

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