{"id":6658,"date":"2020-05-11T12:54:44","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T12:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=6658"},"modified":"2020-05-11T13:29:24","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T13:29:24","slug":"the-absent-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=6658","title":{"rendered":"The absent Father"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Goosander (female) plus chicks on the River Mersey, Disbury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wonderful to see the resident Goosanders are having another successful breeding season. Along with the Kingfishers and Dippers a really good sign of the improving water quality now found in the upper regions of the River Mersey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Whilst the water quality has improved there’s still plenty of debris including this traffic cone to be found. Good to see that the young Goosanders don’t seem to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Time to stretch those wings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unable to fly the chicks are totally dependent upon Mum. With the bank patrolled by Herons the Goosanders have good reason to be wary and a couple of other adult females were lending their support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In common with other male Goosanders the drake is now likely to be spending summer in Norway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Perhaps the cover provided by the traffic cone isn’t so unwelcome after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not so sure about the tyres however in the past they have been used by the occasional Dipper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Whilst up in Didsbury also had a quick wander to the stretch of the Mersey behind the Waterside leisure club (Galleon). The former, sandy bank used by the Sand Martins has been regraded and replaced with a man-made nesting bank. No sign of use however early days yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also enjoyed a superb view of a Kingfisher and a brief glimpse of the rear end of a Dipper close to where Micker Brook (start of the Ladybrook valley) joins the Mersey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unable to fly the chicks are totally dependent upon Mum. With the bank patrolled by Herons the young Goosanders have good reason to be wary Read More …<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[300,124,969,69],"class_list":["post-6658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","tag-didsbury","tag-goosander","tag-goosander-chicks","tag-river-mersey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6658"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6672,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6658\/revisions\/6672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}