Fluffy chicks make for anxious parents

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/01/fluffy-chicks-make-for-anxious-parents

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In winter this part of the Weardale Way can be a morass, but the rain-leached soil drains quickly in spring. After weeks of dry, windy, weather, the mud had turned to sand and our boots were soon covered in yellow dust. In some sheltered hollows heather, at last showing a green tint of new shoots, shimmered in a heat haze.

Our route followed the wall that divides upland pasture from heather moorland. Together they provide habitats for grouse and the wading birds that return here from the coast to breed, and late May is the peak time for egg hatching.

Six grouse chicks, bundles of fluff with outsized feet, were so perfectly camouflaged we did not spot them until we were a few steps away. They raced between the forest of heather stems towards their mother, who took them under her wings and glared at us, impassive, relying only on her mottled brown plumage to keep them safe. We could have bent down and touched her.

In the pastures waders put up a noisy defence of their chicks. An oystercatcher, a gaudy pied clown with crimson beak and eyes, flew straight towards us, piping hysterically, then veered away, landing on a fence post 50 metres ahead, leading us away from its nestlings.

A redshank, catching our attention with persistent, desolate, notes, flew in a wide circle away from his consort, which was evidently guarding young.

The masters of diversionary defensive tactics are the curlews, whose calls never fail to send a shiver down my spine. Their bubbling courtship songs of early spring, notes trailed through the air as they rise then glide across the valley, have now given way to dog-like yelps of anxious parents.

The curlews rose, glided beside us with a sidelong glance, landed behind the wall, then, after a minute or two, flew up to see if we had gone. As we hadn’t, they landed on the bridle path and walked slowly ahead, luring us after them.

From the valley floor these fells, swept by cloud shadows, can still look sombre and lifeless in May. But up here the heather was teeming with anxious birds protecting their broods.

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