Walked down to the lake this afternoon to check on the nesting swans. Was pleasantly surprised to see one of their eggs has hatched. She must be feeling really hot sitting on the nest all this time especially now it has become warmer. If you look closely you can see its little head behind the eggs. Still four more eggs waiting to hatch. If you click on the photo you will be able to see it a bit larger.
There was also a family of coots swimming in the lake. Parents with five young ones. Not sure what their young are called and a search on google only came up with chicks. Some silly answers like cooties and cuties were also there. They are quite ugly looking chicks (ok I suppose some will think they are cute). They were swimming towards me on the water and then one adult went off with two young and the other two followed the other adult. This one was left behind and after a while it realised it had lost mum and dad and started calling them. After a while one called back and off it went the direction of the call.
Not sure if this is mum or dad, as far as I could see both adults look alike
Each adult was feeding the two chicks they were with so obviously share the task of caring for their young.
I also saw two different damsel flies and think I have identified them correctly.
The first one is a Demoiselle. There were two of them flying around and they have such beautiful bright blue/ green colouring.
This one is a common blue damsel fly, dozens of these flying around in the sunshine today.
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