One Year Pond Study: Week 47 – A Quick Visit and a Surprise

Here is our pond this week:

Spring is finally peeking around the corner and the trees are responding afresh with buds for a new season.  It lifts one’s spirits and I am so glad we have the different seasons to enjoy anew.

This particular pond visit was a very quick one, crammed in on our way to somewhere else, but it was good to be back after so long a break.  The works done before Christmas continue to ravish at the bird life.  I looked back over last year’s post, around this time, and the pond was filled with a variety of birds from Moorhens, Mallards and Mandarin ducks.  Today there were two Mallards and two Moorhens:

However, unlike last year, the Moorhens have deemed it nesting time and have built a nest for the third time in the past 12 months:

There don’t seem to be any chicks yet, and we couldn’t see any eggs but there was always one Moor Hen sat on the nest at all times:

Quite exciting!  Next week I will post about the year long bird study we have been doing on the Moor Hens this year and all we have learnt from a year of observing them.  Truly observing nature teaches so much more than book, or at least makes one retain so much more than books.  And this is coming from a bibliophile!

The children had a quick play climbing trees before we continued on our way:

Quick, brief yet ultimately still rewarding.  Only four more weeks to go.