The Oystercatchers have left the building…

But there’s a new pair of birds in the house! Well, on the house anyway 🙂 According to the comments there are actually several new birds on the roof, but the camera is now showing a nesting Common Gull (Larus Canus, the North American variety is also called Mew Gull). There are also two pairs of Lesser Black-backed Gulls (Larus Fuscus) with new chicks 🙂

As you can see the nest is not in the same spot as the Oystercatchers’, but it’s not very far away. The Oystercatcher chick is actually still roaming around up there, but it’s a large roof, so I doubt he will be seen on camera again. Here are some funny pictures of the little darling:

Despite the parents’ best effort to hatch that last egg (they even tried to feed it!), it never hatched, and on Thursday the family finally left the nest for good.

This week the egg was checked, and they found it had not been fertilized, which is sort of good. Another year one of the chicks had died just days from hatching 😦 But this year’s chick (now named Tjeldrik) is growing and doing just fine! He has been weighed and ringed so we can find him again when he grows up 🙂 He will stay on the roof for another week or two, then he’ll jump the 20m down on the lawn and join his parents in the park 🙂

(Picture from Facebook)