They had me worried AGAIN, the baby Dabchicks that is. I could only see 2 this morning with the 2 adults but on my return I scoured the reeds and eventually I saw all 3 babies 
I am not saying this is definitely going to happen, but the 2 adults seemed to be getting ready to mate again, the female certainly got into a mating position but the male was more interested in catching fish and they both were building the nest up ?
The Coot is also still on the nest, I just hope they and the Dabchicks survive Friday and Saturday ‘night’ again.
Terry
Hi Terry, I have been down the river this evening and I only saw 2 Dabchicks chicks present but the nest now has at least one egg on it (both adults in attendance) so it will be interesting to see what happens now (are the young Dabchicks left to fend for themselves)? I don’t think this situation of a 2nd brood has happened on the Slea before (well in recent times anyway) so I am intrigued as to what happens now.
Regards Graham
Hi Graham, thanks for the update
I am hoping that you had the same problem as I did with seeing all 3 babies because I looked for a good 15 minutes in the reeds before I saw the third, so lets hope the third was just ‘hiding’, I will have a really looooong look tomorrow now.
The adults did seem to be in the mating mood the other day, and like you say, a second brood has not happened on the Slea in at least recent times so it will be interesting to see what happens to the first brood i.e. whether they have to find food for themselves or not. I hope 1 of the adults still helps them out because I have not seen them dive very sucessfully for food yet, but perhaps if they have to then they will get better very quickly.
I hope Water Weekend isnt on this year because the second brood will not have hatched when it would normally be run and therefore the eggs could be destroyed by the (stupid) raft races
Terry