Great Crested Grebe

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This handsome bird is a great crested grebe.

 This diving bird has it's legs situated well back on it's body and is ungainly on land and needs a fair run up to take off so it is found on bigger expanses of water. I see them sometimes on Sunbiggin Tarn near us. The birds are well known for their elaborate courting ritual in the spring where they do a bit of formation dancing and the male often presents the female with some weeds as a present! The young birds are striped and are often seen piggy backing on the parents. In the summer time the crests are much more developed than in this photograph which was taken in September.

Diary
The ash treasure laden with seeds at the moment. The seeds hand down in clusters which are sometimes referred to as "ash keys". On doing some research on these I was surprised to find that this are edible and if picked fresh can be pickled. .... no I'm not remotely interested in trying this out !


Mystery frog! We found a frog hopping about on the kitchen floor yesterday. Nobody is admitting to leaving the doors open so it remains a mystery as to how it got in! Its living close to nature anyway! A flock of 8 (whooper?) swans flew past yesterday afternoon - if I had been quicker with my camera I would have caught them with the backdrop of a rainbow - missed it!

Two rabbits on overnight cameras and that was that! It's still raining!!







 

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