Coots on the Kennet

For the past few weeks the coots on the River Kennet have been building the piles of sticks in the river that form their nests. In particular  the coot nesting under the footbridge over Gunter's Brook (near the Queen's Road multi-story car park) has been sitting on its nest every time I have walked past in the last week, and my guess is that it is already sitting on eggs which will hatch out soon.

This morning I noticed a particularly large pile of sticks, with a swan asleep on it, in the Kennet branch near Home Base.  A coot carefully climbed up the side of the nest, presumably with the intention of stealing some sticks for its own nest, but the swan woke, poked its beak at the coot, and the latter retreated back into the water.

A Skirmish between Magpies and Carrion Crows

On Monday I travelled to work via Ascot rather than via Farnborough North.  While waiting for the train to leave Ascot, I watched the following  little skirmish between a pair of magpies and a pair of carrion crows. 

One of the crows was perched near the top of a conifer tree and one of the magpies, I'll assume it was the female, was rather agitated and repeatedly flying up to the crow, obviously trying to drive it away from the tree.  The other crow was in the lower branches of the conifer and the other magpie was in a nearby silver birch.  The second crow repeatedly flapped up to the second magpie, presumably the male, apparently also trying to drive it off.  After a minute of two of this, the two crows flew off.  The female magpie immediately flew to the top of the conifer and went into it.  After a few seconds more the male also flew upto join her, with a twig in his mouth.

What were they fighting over?  I suspect that it was a nest that the magpies were building.  Maybe the first crow was inspecting it with a view to taking it over.  I don't think that the crow was raiding eggs, firstly the crow was not deep enough into the tree to be eating eggs, and secondly there was no sign of egg on its beak.  The fact that the second magpie carried up a twig does suggest that they were still  building the nest.

Woken by a Woodpecker

On Saturday morning I was woken by a greater spotted woodpeck drumming on one of the trees outside my bedroom window.  It was a beautiful warm sunny morning, the third in a row -- spring is here at last!  A little later, I prepared Zoe's breakfast to the yak-yak-yak sound of a green woodpecker.

Ostriches

A couple of weeks ago I a colleague from work gave me lift to Wokingham station.  As we were driving through the countryside south of Wokingham, she pointed out a field of ostriches (Struthio camelus) to me.  They are being kept on a farm there.   I suppose it is too much to ask that some will escape and go feral?  Zoe was suitably impressed when I told her on getting home.

Egyptian Goose Chick

The last surviving egyptian goose chick on the Reading University lakes is doing well, as you can see from this picture I took on Sunday.   Its parents were taking great care of it: chasing away  mallards and coots that came too close and quickly shepherding it out of the way of swans.  It seemed to instinctively know to go to the water's edge when danger threatened.