Day: May 10, 2021

Coot on Eggs

coot sketches

Lake outlet, Newmillerdam, 10.15 a.m.: The sitting coot gets increasingly alarmed as the drake mallard gets nearer, dabbling around the nest. The coot’s repeated, scalding notes get more frantic until its mate swims over briefly to check things out, but the mallard soon moves on.

Back to the business of incubating, the coot keeps changing position and I get a glimpse of 8-10 greenish brownish eggs.

Its mate returns and presents the sitting bird with a spindly pencil-length twig sprouting fresh green leaves. This is accepted by the bird on the nest (I’m not saying ‘the female’ because I can’t tell the difference between the two birds) and incorporated into the car tyre-sized platform.

Brownie-gate

brownie cartoon

As it’s our council leader Denise Jeffery’s birthday, I couldn’t resist a homemade birthday brownie cartoon. Congratulations too to Tracy Brabin, M.P., who celebrated her birthday yesterday by becoming West Yorkshire’s first elected mayor. By the way, her ‘vote Labour’ brownies turned out to be perfectly legal.

And commiserations to a talented bunch of runners up. What a shame that all seven couldn’t get together like the mismatched heroes of a comic book series to pool their superpowers, perhaps mentored by a wise old leader, played by former Dewsbury Reporter journalist, Patrick Stewart, to ‘promote ideals of tolerance and equality for all’ in West Yorkshire, just like he does in Marvel’s X-Men movies.