Sometimes in parenting, patience runs out, and even on a quiet lake, a firm beak can speak louder than a thousand meeps.
Parenting à la Coot.
Many of us wildlife-watchers are likely to be enjoying David Attenborough’s current series on Parenthood. But what about parenting here at Killingworth Lake? This is a favoured nesting place of Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Great-Crested Grebe and other waterfowl.
This morning I watched an adult Coot in company of her two half-grown chicks swimming East-West near the south shore of the small lake. One chick swam silent, the other meeped incessantly as it swam. All three arrived at a mud ‘island’, water-level low for want of rain. Here the parent climbed up and began to preen. The meeping youngster followed and stood alongside, still meeping. The silent chick stayed silent in the water nearby. After tweaking one or two feathers, the adult bird abandoned its attempt at preening, stepped down into the water and began to swim back East. The silent chick took up its place silently on the mother’s left side. The meeper scrambled down to take its place on the mother’s right. And began to meep again.
They had swum only a short way, maybe the adult’s own body-length, when the mother’s patience ran out. She used her beak to hit the meeping chick on the head and push it under the water. There was a moment’s silence. The head reappeared and the mother promptly hit it again pushing it firmly underwater. When the youngster reappeared the second time, it seemed to have learned its lesson and all three continued to swim East in silence!
