Lapwing Alarm

Page 1 of 2, Sunday, 2nd June 2002, West Yorkshire

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Great tits and their fledgling chicks are exploring the tree canopy in the wood. The young are a dumpier, paler, yellowy green version of the adults. One chick sits on the stump of a limb of an oak, where a branch has broken off, pecking at a fallen oak catkin.

Silvery flower spikes are now showing, but have yet to open, on the wavy hair grass on the dry bank at the top of the wood.

lapwing

We can see no signs of chicks or eggs nearby but one of the two lapwings by a marshy pond near the canal is calling and circling in alarm. It's the presence of a single magpie that is causing the commotion.

Unfazed by the lapwing's performance the magpie continues to examine whatever it is that it has found by the pond, then flies off in its own good time.

crow

Peace reigns for a short while; a young moorhen follows its parent through the shallows while a coot swims along, pecking amongst the waterweeds as it goes, but soon there are more alarms as a heron appears, chased by a pair of crows which dive on as it flies off up river.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@willowisland.co.uk'