Nesting Coot

Some of you may have noticed I'm rather smitten with the swans who have taken up residence on the lochans by my work. Today I saw, for the first time, that one of the females has now built a nest and was sitting by it. No eggs in it yet but then it was only last week that my colleague spotted them mating so I'm very impressed at how quickly they have build a home and "moved in" together!

In addition to the swan nest, there are 3 coot nests that I've spotted around the park. I got some lovely pictures a few weeks ago of one of the female coots sitting on a huge pile of eggs and the male passing reeds over to her to build up the nest. However, the next day the nest was empty, and the coots nowhere to be seen. Who knows if a fox or suchlike got them overnight, but it was a very sad sight to see the empty nest. However, I did notice today that a moorhen has now taken over the nest - perhaps the previous tenant actually got evicted and the moorhen has taken advantage of a cheap reposession - sign of these credit crunch times!

The picture today is one of the other nests (I think perhaps the same one which seventy seven blipped last month. She seems to have been sitting there for a long time so hope we see some baby coots soon.