Coots feet

Posted on May 4, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged bills, British water birds, coots, Feet, Legs, Moorhens, similarities, Variations, water birds2 Comments

Padded paddle feet on a Coot. Their feet actually look bluer than this in real life, their legs are yellow. I’m posting this because an American friend wrote about their Coots which have similar feet, but yellow coloured.

I’m always getting Coots and Moorhens mixed up. But Coots have a white blob on their forehead and their beaks are white too, Moorhens have a red blob in the same place plus the top of their bills are red, and they have similar feet and legs to Coots, but they are yellow. Maybe they are related?

Hidden Coots

Posted on February 11, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged blue feet, Colours, coots, Environment, Fun, Moorhens, Nature, Shapes, Westport lakeLeave a comment

Blue footed, grey blue bodies, black heads with white blazes above their beaks. Not a good photo but my arm shakes too much so this was the best shot of the bunch!

The other birds which are similar have red blazes above their beaks, darker bodies, those are Moorhens. The photo was taken at Westport lake last weekend. I did think about going back today but I didn’t feel well enough on this grey, foggy, cold and drab day.

Feeding the geese

Posted on July 19, 2021July 19, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Birds, coots, Ducks, Geese, goslings, Moorhens, Swans, Walking, Westport lakeLeave a comment

Feed the birds.

£2 a box

There’s a song there somewhere? One of our things we do when we walked round Westport lake. The birds were all round us, pecking our toes. Trying to get the food out of my hand. Even in this weather they want feeding. Ducks, Geese, Goslings, Coots and Moorhens and a solitary Swan.

The birds still have babies, a bit bigger than yesterday, they haven’t all flown the nest yet. It was lovely to see them.

Westport today

Posted on February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Birds, Blogging, Dawdle, Geese, Lake, Longport, Maze, Meander, Moorhens, Pigeons, Staffordshire, Staffordshire wildlife Trust, Stoke-on trent, Swans, Walk, Water fowl, Westport lakeLeave a comment

A cold sunny day until the breeze blew clouds across the landscape. Ducks, geese, pigeons, moorhens and swans looking out for food, so we got two bags full to grain to feed them. I thought we would just go round the small lake which is a quarter of a mile, but instead we did the mile walk round the large lake. We’ll it was more of a slow dawdle. My hip is not right yet after pulling a muscle, but we did extend the walk into the maze that Staffordshire wildlife Trust have made on the area of hedging at the far end of the lake. The paths were muddy and difficult to get out of when we tried to regain the main path.

When the sun went behind the clouds it made a fantastic and dramatic picture. I took numerous pictures of the birds and trees and landscape around the lake. I feel much better for the walk, though I was very chilly when we finished. I need to be able to walk much further than this, but it’s a start.

Feed the birds

Posted on January 30, 2019January 30, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Barlaston, Birds, Bread, Duck food, Ducks, Food, Moorhens, Staffordshire, SwansLeave a comment

We went out for lunch today at Barlaston in Staffordshire. We stopped at a lovely pub next to the canal. There were lots of hungry ducks on it as we pulled up. I decided to have a meal that would include bread so I could feed them when we came out. I got a crusty bread roll with my starter and put it in a napkin for use later on. After a delicious lunch we came out and went back to the canal. Now a couple of Swans had joined the ducks and moorhens.

Out came the bread roll. I broke it into tiny bits and tried to share it between all the birds. My hubby went off to buy a loaf of bread (by now the gaggle of birds had grown to around 20). When he came back we started feeding them. There were birds flapping and chasing each other everywhere. We kept breaking the bread up into small pieces so that it would get wet and not swell up when they swallowed it. Some of the moorhens skidded across the frozen ice on the canal when they tried to catch the bread. We finally managed to get rid of a whole loaf!

Recently signs were put up telling people not to feed birds with bread to stop them choking… Now there is news that birds are starving to death…..

I’m glad we fed the birds, even if it wasn’t the correct stuff. It was at least brown bread and they seemed healthy.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Moorhens