by Lindsey

Blue YZ, our young female chick, has been treating us to lots of flying displays today. It looks like she’s practising all the techniques she’s going to need for fishing. She’s been flying around, hovering, fish spotting, braking, putting her legs out and to our great excitement going into the water at the lilypads. At first we thought she was having a go a fishing but on reflection she was just practising going into the water. She did go in a bit too deep but not too far to worry about. She’s spent much of the day moving between perches opposite the hides with mum and sometimes dad nearby.

On Friday there was a big thunderstorm here and Blue YZ seemed to get very excited by this and was jumping around with her wings out almost as if she was having a shower. Luckily one of our volunteers managed to get  photo:

There’s been two fish deliveries today both Pike so our male’s catch total now stands at 332 so time for a fish pie chart.

 

Unfortunately some sad news from the loch, we’ve lost one of the Great Crested Grebe chicks. I had noticed that both an adult and chick had been missing for the last week but I hoped they were together on another part of the loch but today I saw both adults and the one chick together. This is not unusual particularly when the youngsters start swimming on their own as they’re ideal ‘Pike bites’. On a happier note the Goosander still has all 11 of her ducklings and the female Mallard is on her second brood of the season.