Full-time job

It’s a full-time job at the moment for coot parents to feed their newly -hatched and very hungry chicks on the lake at California Country park.

There are at least three families of coots, each with four or five chicks, nesting on the café side of the lake.

They paddle out as a family for an all-day breakfast, the protective parents in the lead, ever vigilant and ready to fend off inquisitive geese and ducks.

The adult birds, distinctive by white patches above their beaks, work together to hatch and feed the chicks.

In this family, one parent dives to find the food – anything from vegetation to insect larvae – and passes it, beak to beak, to its mate to feed the demanding youngsters.

They will continue to feed the chicks for about two months when the chicks will be able dive for themselves. By then a second brood of brothers and sisters will have arrived and there will be five more hungry beaks begging for food.