Bundle!

John C. writes: When a fight started in the playground at school the shout of ‘Bundle!’ would go up and everyone would pile in. Well, kids probably couldn’t get away with that these days but the coots at Pit 60 clearly don’t know anything about that.

It’s spring and the thoughts of the coots – notoriously quarrelsome birds – at Pit 60 seem to have turned to agression. The males would raise their wings and feathers to intimidate rivals, and we watched a number of fights which turned into ‘bundles’ with several others joining in. They were really quite vicious, but provided some entertainment for a damp Sunday afternoon. No-one got seriously hurt.

Some great crested grebes, however, were courting in a much more seemly manner. We watched a pair waggling their heads at each other. One dived and came up with some weed which they offered to the other. We hoped that that one would do the same and that we’d see their famous ‘weed dance’ but they just looked nonplussed. Eventually they went their separate ways – better luck next time!

As well as the coots and the grebes, there was a huge number of pintails (over 500), as well as good numbers of wigeon, teal and shovelers, and few goldeneye and gooseanders. The water in the pit is still very deep and that seems to attract pintails, of which there have been a lot this very wet winter, probably beating all previous records.

John Cobb and Sue Morton 10 Feb 2024