First young of 2016

The Great Crested Grebes on Orrell Water Park have young or perhaps I should say at least one youngster, as one is all I have seen so far. I am not sure when the eggs hatched but I got my first brief glimpse of a chick on the female's back last Sunday. I didn't managed to get any photos of them then and only managed to get some badly lit record shots yesterday.

There could be up to 4 youngsters keeping warm under the parent's wings and the way she is holding them I am sure there is more than one.

This is the earliest I have known them hatch eggs successfully at this particular site and with incubation lasting around a month the eggs must have been laid in the second week of February. While this is an early breeding attempt for this particular site it isn't all that unusual for the species, although the main laying period doesn't usually start before March as a general rule.

Hopefully I'll  find out how many chicks there are in due course and get some better photos in the process.

Birds nest revisited

I have been following the progress of a few nests recently including a Sparrowhawk nest that was shown in an earlier post. There were 5 chicks which is a fairly typical brood size and when they were ringed I found that 3 were males and 2 were females. Sparrowhawk chicks can be sexed on leg and foot size from about 9 days of age but females are starting to become much bigger overall by that age too. It is good to report that they have been making good progress as can be seen in the images below.

The Sparrowhawk nest was found 24/06/14 when the chicks were about a week old and it was quite crowded then.

When I returned to ring them on 30/06/14 it really was a full nest.

The chick was sexed as a male and fitted nicely in my hand.

This female chick was much more of a handful than the male above.

I returned on 02/07/14 to check them from a distance and they were clearly doing well.
I had been worried about this nest being disturbed or worse still the chicks being stolen because of its location.

I went back this afternoon and this young male was standing proud on the edge of the nest. He has lost most of his down and could leave the nest by the end of the week.

I will go back again to check that they have fledged successfully and when they have finally left I will also check the nest for pellets to see what prey they have been eating. In the past I have found the remains of some interesting prey in Sparrowhawk nests including Swift, House Martin, Sedge Warbler and Brown Hawker Dragonfly but young Blackbirds and Starlings are often the most common prey items. If I do find anything of interest I will report it in due course.

Great Crested Grebe courtship behaviour - they start very young

I was out with the camera and dog this afternoon and sat down by the lake in the park on my way back. I had been watching the Canada Geese with their goslings when my attention was drawn to the Great Crested Grebe chicks. Two of the young were facing each other and mirroring each others movements in the head shaking and ritualised preening display. This went on for several minutes and it was clear they were practicing the courtship behaviour that they will need in later life.

Adult Great Crested Grebes are well known for their elaborate courtship behaviour that incudes head shaking, ritualised preening and a weed carrying display. I have done a bit of research and haven't come across any references to young Great Crested Grebes exhibiting this behaviour and at such an early age. At this stage I don't know if this is a unique observation but if it is not it is likely to be something that has been rarely observed or documented. I will do a bit more digging but if it is previously unrecorded behaviour you read it and saw it here first.

If this hasn't been recorded or photographed before I suppose I could have kept it under wraps and looked to get it published in some ornithological journal or magazine. This usually means a long delay which doesn't seem right in a digital age so here it is: observed today and published today.



Spot the displaying Great Crested Grebe chicks.

 

all images and text copyright P J Alker 08/06/13