Eggs and Nests - Two Waterfowl and a Rail

Sorry for not posting for ages peeps. The following information on the Mute Swan at the Millpond is from when I started this post about two months ago (I know, I am pretty lame at updating the blog) so is not really relevant now but hey-ho. Time for another Eggs and Nests post, this time with waterbirds that you can see on almost any patch of British freshwater. Two waterfowl and a rail - the Mute Swan, the Mallard and the Eurasian Coot. On the Emsworth Millpond (this place featured in one of my earliest posts entitled "A Trip to the Mill Pond") a pair of Mute Swans (I say a pair but I never really saw the cob. I think he died :( but I hope not) nested. They made their nest out of the vast amount of litter around the area because there was not much else. I got a good few feathers from there! The brood originally consisted of five cygnets but now only one remains and is still fairly small, probably due the relative lack of aquatic vegetation there on which swans feed. A pair of Coot (I have seen both of these) also nested on the Millpond, right in the middle though! The photos of the Mute Swans and Coot on the Millpond are by me. Here comes nest facts!

Mute Swan eggs by David Green

A more typical Mute Swan nest. Photo
by Michael W. Richards.

The Mute Swan and her nest at the
Emsworth Millpond where the nest
is partly built from garbage because
this is more plentiful
 than vegetation there. :(

Cygnus olor - Mute Swan nest/eggs

One of the cygnets from the "Millpond
 Five" when all of them actually existed.
The other four were on the other side
of their mum.

The Mute Swan has a very large "volcano nest", a high  mound of vegetation with a  "crater", a shallow depression, in the middle. This crater is where the eggs (up to ten) are laid. It is lined with down for warmth and is slightly larger than the pen's body. The cob provides the materials for the pen who builds the nest from them. They share incubation and brooding duties. The eggs range from pale cream to light
brown. the cygnets when they hatch are dingy brown and white below. When an all-white cygnet pops up as they sometimes do, it is known as a "Polish" cygnet and will grow up into a white so-called "Polish Swan".

Occasionally a Mallard will
nest in a treehole as this photo
by Alan Pulley shows. Take
a look at his blog Birds 'n Such.

Anas platyrhynchos - Mallard nest/eggs  (yes the text went a bit weird because of the stupid picture placing thingumabob)

The nest of the Mallard is well-concealed in vegetation, though can be out in the open if cover is not available. The nest is a cup, roughly-made from straw, grass, twigs and leaves. It is lined generously with down plucked from the duck's breast. Clutch size varies from approximately 8 to 13 eggs. The eggs are fairly variable in colour, ranging from very pale green to turquoise or blue. We all know the beautifully maternal and quite frankly adorable sight of a mother Mallard leading her few-day-old brood of black and yellow pompoms  out into the water in a perfect 

line. AWWW SQUEE!

Mallard nest with 14 eggs by Mike Wilkes.

A Mallard leading her brood out
into the water by John Cancalosi.

Fulica atra - Eurasian Coot nest/eggs

Coots can be encouraged to nest on
artificial nesting-platforms.
 Photo again by Paul Dooley.

Coot clutch by Paul Dooley

Coots will build piles of vegetation on open water. This one
is like the one at the Millpond that the lost photo is of. Paul Dooley.

Okay, how annoying, I can't find my Coot nest photo :( so I had to find someone else's. I found Harefield Wildlife Images by Paul Dooley. Every photo here comes from his post "Four Different Coots on Four Very Different Nests" which focuses on the variety of places Coots can nest in. Coots build nests of dead reeds and water vegetation (or out of garbage where it is more readily available) in the variety of places in the photos. They lay up to 10 white speckled eggs and may lay and raise 2 or 3 broods a season, reflecting the high mortality rate (a Coot chick is a welcome snack for various herons and raptors).  Coots can be brutal with their young in a time of food shortage. If one of the smaller chicks (that isn't getting any food because the parents always give it to the big strong ones) begs his mum for food, she will either be very generous and give him something, bite him until he stops begging and starves to death or bite him until he dies so he won't want more food.

A tidier Coot's nest than the open-water mound, hidden in the reeds.
If I were a hen Coot (and what a beautiful bird I would be!) I would
personally prefer this nest, no offence to the other Coots who build
mounds in open water; your handiwork (or more "beakiwork") is still
very fine. Paul Dooley.

The most typical view of a nesting Coot, well-concealed
in Bulrushes (Great Reedmace) or
other waterside plants. Paul Dooley. 

 Thanks for reading the blog peoples! I will get a bit more up to date with the posting and stop doing such immensely long "Bird Facts!"! Because of my mentally over-the-top brain, what was meant to be a one-sentence fact about birds with a photo to go with it has turned into some mega info post thingumabob! :-| BYEEEEE!