Summer Behaviour at the Lake.

This picture taken in early June shows the family of four signets becoming instant attractions to the boating public in their first week on the lake after hatching.


This is the only family to successfully hatch and have signets on the lake. I think it is the only time in the time i have been following the swans at Roath that there has only been one family group.


Does anyone know has it been a poor year for swans in other places too?


I and some friends went out in a rowing boat earlier this month to view activities on the lake ... we discovered several grebes nests as the slide show on the right shows.





...... lets now look and see how life has progressed on the lake since as the summer quickly passes!










In foreground of the above picture can be seen a late coots nest built out into the water, with the coot sitting on the eggs.


This picture shows the same nest this week with one of the young coots on the nest. Young coots seem to keep a link with the family nest for quite sometime. This is the case until the adult coots take over the nest to incubate another clutch of eggs.


It will be interesting to see if this nest in fact has a second clutch of eggs.














Life round the Islands:

I painted this portrayal of the waters round the islands early this morning before the park became busy with the Sunday crowds. It is very clear that their is a fine balance in the park as i the summer months the park sees much activity with people and wildlife must take to the foliage of the islands and the protection of the above tree canopy .... but there is much activity of many kinds while the park is relatively quiet in the early morning.

In the background of the painting can be seen a family of grebes, the second to hatch here in the park. They nested under the protection of the foliage of the islands and four chicks were hatched nearly a fortnight ago. In the picture (left) the four chicks can be seen quite clearly with one of the grebes. The other will be away getting food and comes to the family underwater to hide their location, Four is a large number for grebes and will require much hunting by the adult grebes, Periodically gulls swooped above a reminder of the vulnerability of these chicks at this stage.

In the foreground of the painting can be seen the fast growing signets who seem to get escorted with one parent ahead and the other bringing up the rear in a convoy as they come up from their roosting area to dabble on the young fresh reed to be found up here.

Here too coots dive and there is the odd stand off over territory as coots ruffle up their plumage to defend their Territory's as the coot is depicted doing in the centre of the painting. On occasion they will fight. Alsol note the fast changing flora as summer progresses.

Geese behaviour

It seems when there has been fresh rain, the fresh rain water seems a better option for the geese than the water to be found in the lake!

This week the weather brought regular down pours and this week I saw the young gosling leading the way to the road side to drink from the water laying along the road sides.

It can be seen how dangerous it is for passing motorists!!

Has anyone seen this behaviour in other places?

A Coot Encounter with a grebe on the nest under the willow!

This young Coot who was from the first clutch to be incubated and is about seven weeks old does not have the same sort of problems as the gosling ... he has own bottle (is it Brains SA maybe) at his ready disposal!!

At the beginning of this week the parents hatched out their second brood of young!!

The only problem was under that particular willow there were two nests one belonging to the coots and in close proximity was a grebes nest ...... and unfortunately the young coot did not yet recognise its parents plumage!!

the coot chick edged its way up to the grebes nest. The Grebe initially was quite tolerant but as the the little un continued to seek attention the grebe became agitated and rose from the eggs and commenced pecking at the little innocent coot!!

..... within seconds the parent coots came racing across the water like athletes and it was quite difficult to see who ended up under the water as the water splashed up reflecting the ferocity of the battle

..... the Grebe came out of it with its feathers fluffed out round its head and the tiny coot made its escape!!

In the painting below I have created a composite illustration of the stages of the action, it may seem all a little confusing but that reflects the action itself ... ferocious but over in an instant as the grebe returned to the job in hand incubating those eggs!!