Great Creasted Grebes and Blackbird chicks

Good Morning! Happy Friday!

With Spring in the air (in the Northern hemisphere, at least), today's pictures are both of baby birds.
The first is a Great Crested GrebePodiceps cristatus, with its chick hiching a ride on is back between its wings. Both males and females care for their young, so I could not tell you if the adult here is the father or mother.

The birds in this picture was taken close to the shore on the Swiss side of Lake Geneva. More precisely, they were photographed in Montreux. I am told that there are masses of Grebes a few miles to the East of Montreux thanks to "Les Grangettes" bird reserve abutting Villeneuve, but, to my shame, I have never actually been that far around the lake shore...so much to do, so little time....Anyway, let us just say that the grebes can thankfully be seen in Montreux, too.



The second picture is of a nest of Eurasian Blackbird chicks, Turdus merula, photographed in North Yorkshire. For me, this second picture is all about vulnerability: you look at the chicks- naked and with their eyes closed (unlike the somewhat older baby Grebe above, who seemed to be "enjoying the view"). You look at them and you see just how fragile they are, how unprepared they are at this point for the life ahead of them. It just seems to illustrate how fragile life can be.

Life itself might be resilient and relentlessly inclined to colonise and recolonise whatever habitat it can, but, at the same time, individual living beings can be so delicate and helpless: so I look at these noisey little chicks and see tiny, frail things balanced on the very edges of a world so vast and complex they could not hope to comprehend it, even if they could open their eyes to see it. Perhaps that applies to most of us, really. Perhaps that's just me.
What do you see?


Comments

  1. I love the grebe chick with her stripes. She is just the cutest and so unlike the adults you wouldn't guess what she would grow into if you didn't know already.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have so.e very profound thoughts, all I can think of when looking at the pictures is "awhhhh!" :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awwww . The little stripey Grebe is so cute. Hitching a ride. Great pictures.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts