... Comparing how young birds find their way and are parented

Under the willow ... life as young Great Crested Grebe

At times the coots have been arch rivals but other than the odd time when the parent grebe senses danger and sends out her warning call, opening wide her beak and extending her crest the two families seem to share the willow as it offers safety tor both from predators. But at times of trouble the coot family return to their nest, but the Grebes abandoned their nest long ago and the place of security for the young grebe is in the feathers of the parents back. Grebes never go ashore the closest they do so is to go on their floating nests while incubating the eggs.

The Grebe seems to be a very shy bird and hides and cowers away but I have of people saying the parent will attack predators with fury, but it is not something i have witnessed.

In comparison the coots are quite social sticking together as a group, while the grebe is left with her chick sheltering and male seems to return to feed or to escort his family to a different place of shelter and safety.

The young grebe seems to spend much time in the protection of the parents back, but maybe it is not so surprising they have already lost two chicks, one since Saturday. The survival of chicks was far better last summer.

Life on the back ... what a life!

When it is snack time for the young grebe

The second parent either seems to come with food caught from diving or as was this case took the family out into the open water so I was able to get the photos below.

The young Starling also has to call out and follow the parent who catches relevant bits which is then put straight into the open beak of the young bird.



















While the signets idle about in the water before returning to the bank while the cob with his feathers puffed up goes off in pursuit of any other swans that dare to come to close ..... even across the other side of the lake!!

It may seem to be the ugly duckling in its own eyes but the signet seems to have a confident start although like others they are open to predators particularly in their first week. This pair who have been rearing for a number of years now at Roath seem to work well in partnership keeping a close eye on their Young and their territory!

On occasions the resident black swans, a non native to these waters it has been said attack the young mute signets. I have not seen this but seeing their aggressiveness towards the mute swan in other situations ... see other earlier posting, I can quite believe it!.

Take another Bird that starts life in South Wales

Quite by Contrast the Storm Petrel, which in some ways is not dis-similar to the grebe in that it remains on water other than coming ashore to nest and lay eggs. The storm petrel comes to remote locations off the British and Scandinavian coast for this purpose, including the South Wales coast. The young storm petrel then has to find its own way migrating back to the waters off South Africa for the winter.

A project ran by Cardiff University and A Rosha Portugal has been studying the migration patterns of this small seabird and looking to link changes in weight and diet to see if it correlates to changes in temperature and thus ultimately climate change.

The work is carried out at night on cliffs on the Algarve Coast of Portugal, where the birds are caught in nets, first ringed and then weights and feces samples taken (if the birds cooperate) before being released again.

I volunteered on one of the teams last year. The project is currently on location at the Algarve just now. From all accounts it appears they are getting few birds coming into the nets which must be making the nights sitting anticipating the birds coming in long and tedious.

You can watch the projects progress by going to: http://stormies-online.blogspot.com/

This was a water colour painting I created as I anticipated working on the project with the stormies coming into the nets as a result of playing recordings of their bird song.