S/he flew across the canal (10m or so?) which is a fair effort, if you know anything about moorhens. The wings are not decorative, but neither are they the wings of an albatross.
I was walking homewards along the canal towpath, with high reeds and plants between me and water. I was just coming (another 40m or so) to the spot where I used to feed two adult moorhens, who I’d not seen for a while. I am telling myself that this visitor was one of them. I threw some aquatic bird food (bought by Dr Wifey, who thinks of everything) to it, but the nearby adult ducks took too great an interest. For a while I tried to decoy them while feeding the now two adult moorhens, whose brood of four or five chicks had come with. But ducks are the modern humans of the animal kingdom – loud, very aggressive and utterly uninterested in sharing. It was all a bit fraught and unsatisfactory, so I had to come up with plan B.
Plan B was to back track a bit to the last bridge, cross over to the other bank and see if I could get food to the Moorhen family without also feeding the ruddy ducks (they’re not ruddy, but you know what I mean).
And it worked!! One of the adults swam towards me, jumped up out of the water onto the grass and waited expectantly for food, which I duly delivered. She (more likely than he) got a beak-full (three pellets) and jumped in the water, swam to her chicks, fed them, and then returned for seconds, and thirds and so on. It was bloody lovely. She was fearless, knew what was going on.
And the ducks, still skulking on the opposite bank, were none-the-wiser, and did not crash the party.
I took a couple of videos which show you a bit…
Do the adults remember me? It was odd behaviour to fly across the canal otherwise, and there was a level of calmness in the close presence of a human you don’t often see. I’ll take it as yes.
On the mating thing – I’ve seen some behaviour when feeding adults that baffles me and makes me think it must be one saying to the other ‘fancy a shag after all this food?’ The moorhen will swim in reverse (i.e. backwards) and then do this flinging its head around and flapping its not quite ornamental wings. I’ve seen it two or three times now. Any takers? I will see if google makes me any better-informed….
Yes the Holocene is over. Yes it is because of the wretched reckless hairless apes. Yes, the heat entering the system from the oceans is likely to cause all manners of mayhem to “our” agriculture systems, “our” political systems and make everyone realise that having much organised civilisation in 2050 is not a sure thing. But there are still birds to wonder at, nature to learn about. So, there’s that.
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