It was interesting to watch their progress over several weeks.
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The male remains in close proximity to the nest keeping watch over his spouse and will do what ever he can to distract any intruders who may approach the nest - even attacking. This poor guy has a large abscess on his left leg, probably caused by staphylococci, which I believ is usually fatal.
"That's close enough!"
When the two chicks arrived, they could be described as anything, but beautiful.
What I found interesting is that with this family the one chick hung around the female while the other stayed with the male. Whenever I approached them, the little guys would run off as fast as their little legs would carry them.
Teenager with mom.
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Another teenager
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The abscess eventually grew quite large by the time the chicks had grown up, but it did not seem to slow him down or dampen his enthusiasm.
The last time I saw the plovers there were only three and I can only assume that the male passed on to the happy hunting grounds. At least he saw his offspring grow up.
11 comments:
I've never seen these before Max.. that head is stunning... certainly gets the right name.
Shame about the male, thats one big growth. It must have hurt some.
Wow, that's an impressive abscess! Thanks for sharing these beautiful pics of the little family...D
Too cool what a neat bird, great images, sad about the birds abcess.
cool series. what lens are you using to get that close-up?
Tom, they are very interesting birds and characters to boot.
Apparently this is not uncommon in birds if a wound gets infected. I would have loved to have given him some treatment, but sometimes nature has to take its course.
Momma, I don't know how he coped, but somehow he managed.
Bob, nature can be cruel. I have seen it so often, but then it is about the cycle of life. He fell out, but left two offspring
c'est moi, nothing fancy. I have a Panasonic DMC FZ-7. It has a 6x optical zoom and a 12x digital zoom. When they are nesting you can go right up to them and they will not fly off, unless threatened. The male keeps close to the nest and will attack if his spouse is threatened. Normally he will try to lead the intruder away.
With the nesting female I was probably two metres away from her.
They wear such cute hats ;-)
Geeze, amazing photos. I envy your camera. But I feel for that growth. Ouchy. It is amazing how he has handled life so far. Wow.
OH I think these guys are adorable! Especially the babies!
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