One of the millers told me today that he found a dead coot in the mill race on Saturday afternoon, he also said that it had an injured leg. We know that our lone female Coot injured its leg in the fight with the Cogglesford bend Coot. So adding 1 and 1, it looks like the two ‘new’ coots came in on Saturday and fought our lone Coot to the death. If this is true it means that both the male and female coot that I had seen nest and incubate 2 eggs are both gone, as is the 2 baby coots that only managed to live a couple of days at most, such a sad end to this coot family. I wonder why I say that I dont really like this time of year 
On a happier note, this Song Thrush was singing its heart out on the banks of the Slea yesterday…
Terry
PS I saw the 3 remaining moorhen babies near Cogglesford but only 6 of the 7 further upstream. Not seeing the seventh doesn’t worry me too much at the moment because they are getting about a bit and it really takes time to count/see all of them. I will worry more if I don’t see a seventh tomorrow.