Not a very June-like day, with increasingly strong winds and rain getting heavy by the end of the day. Not the kind of conditions to be a newly hatched, fluffy lapwing chick and not the conditions to be an adult lapwing trying to keep your chicks alive. In front of Tern hide the brood of tiny chicks I first saw yesterday turned out to be a family of three. The adults have a difficult line to tread, if they brood the chicks, keeping them warm and dry, they don’t get enough food and ultimately starve, if they let them feed they run the risk of getting wet and cold and dying anyway. So prolonged wet windy weather is very bad for chick survival, let’s hope there are enough dry breaks in the weather to give them have a chance.
Lapwing and oystercatcher chicks
As it the weather was not enough the adult lapwing are very protective of their chicks and see danger everywhere, in this case they seemed to think that the oystercatcher and her chick and the starlings were unacceptably close and needed driving off.
The oystercatcher chicks are somewhat larger now and able to cope with a bit of adverse weather. When they get to this size the adults often take charge of one chick each, watching over them and feeding them, with the chick finding a little food itself.
Oystercatcher family
The poor weather brought lots of swallows, martins and swifts to feed over Ibsley Water, the numbers growing throughout the day as the conditions worsened until, by the time I closed up I estimate there were at least 1000 swifts, an amazing sight. I got a picture, but in the rain it is hard to make out the birds, I think there are probably about 75 in this shot and the whole sky was filled with them.
every dot is a swift!
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 