Great Crested Grebes Again...

For the last two days my Great Crested Grebe obsession has continued! Anxious that everything goes well with the hatched chick I have been regularly visiting Valentines Park. Yesterday I saw the family had vacated their nest and taken over a nearby area of algae on the lake as their new home! It was a relief to see the newborn safely nestled in the plumage of one of his parent's wings. At first I assumed this was the mother because his/her feathers were so fluffed up that he/she looked very "motherly" - but in fact both parents will carry their offspring.


The male (?) bird was like an over-enthusiastic young, inexperienced father- dashing backwards and forwards with sticks, weeds and even a plastic bag in order to create a sort of raft:




Although yesterday the algae got dispersed when the boats came out, today that did not stop him trying again to make a resting place for his family...

Occasionally he stopped his building work to give a tasty morsel to his chick:


The other parent sat watching him and attending to the chick who periodically tested out the water:



and then sensibly climbed up again onto its parent's back: