They're now adolescent!

The coot chicks which we've been following for several weeks have changed again in a week - their white patches between the eyes (what should I call those? - are they forelocks?) are much better developed now as you can see. And they were spread far and wide around the lake this morning, only occasionally coming back closer to their parents so it took us a while to count them, but happily we did still see all six. (There's at least one other, younger family so we had to be careful to count the right ones!) They're very good at diving for food now, although we did see a parent giving one of them a tasty morsel once or twice.

Wandering around we also came across a moorhen with some chicks, so I've added a shot as an extra. They're more colourful, of course.