Nightingales in November (34 page)

Having commandeered the nest for itself, the Cuckoo chick's next job will need to combine persuasion and trickery if it is to dupe the often much smaller hosts into the demanding business of keeping it sufficiently well fed. Naked and blind initially, the Cuckoo nestling develops a very rapid call, which is thought to fool the foster parents into believing their nest is full of hungry host chicks all calling at once. However, when they both arrive with food, there will only ever be one huge gape waiting to be filled. The hosts will of course bring in the same type of food they would normally feed their own chicks, so in the case of Reed Warbler hosts, for example, the diet will consist of either beakfuls of small flies or larger
single items such as caterpillars, moths, butterflies, damselflies and hoverflies. As the Cuckoo chick has such catholic preferences, all offers will be gratefully received!

Eating the amount of food that would have kept an entire brood of either four Reed Warbler or five Meadow Pipit chicks more than happy, the single Cuckoo chick will grow quickly as both host parents run themselves ragged trying to keep up with the incessant demand. Although pink when hatching, by the time the youngster is three days old it will have turned black all over and developed a vivid orange-red gape to spur its foster parents on with their misguided mission. On the fourth and fifth days the feather quills begin to emerge, giving the youngster a dark and prickly appearance, and by the time its eyes open after around a week, the chick looks nothing whatsoever like the host chicks would have looked were their lives not cut so brutally short. By the time the feathers begin to emerge, the chick will have grown so quickly that the foster parents will be unable to brood their charge. In addition to being quite bulky, the chick will also be able to look after itself and can adopt an amazing defence if threatened. Erecting its feathers and opening its bill to reveal a huge bright red gape, it will then suddenly stretch and snap its neck back in a surprising, intimidating and aggressive manner. Any potential threat promptly dealt with, the Cuckoo chick will then divert its attention straight back to the matter in hand – cajoling its foster parents to hurry up with more food!

As the Cuckoo chick continues to throw its weight around, many Swallows will be busily preparing for the moment their first broods start hatching. Emerging at around 18 days, all the chicks will hatch within a 24 to 36 hour period, and the first act of the female will be to make some more room for the youngsters by tossing the empty eggshells just a few metres away. At hatching, the Swallow chicks will generally weigh less
than 2g and apart from a few wisps of grey down on the head, back and wings, emerge naked and blind. In common with many other chicks, for the first few days they're unable to regulate their own temperature and so must be brooded by the female almost continually. During these early days the chicks' food requirement will also be minimal, so the male should be more than able to cope as he brings in the first supplies.

At this stage the chicks are thought to only know when food is imminent by their parents' contact calls and possibly by the shadow cast as the male approaches the rim of the nest with food. Even at a very tender age, the Swallow chicks' gape is a prominent red-orange in colour and is surrounded by a paler yellow flange. Many birds see in ultraviolet light and as the lighter border reflects a different part of the spectrum to the gape itself, this helps guide their parents into the ‘feeding zone' in the dim light, much like the landing lights on an airport runway at night.

Having laid well before the vast majority of Swallows, the Puffins' single egg will only now be finally entering the last stages of its six week incubation. Taking three or four days to chip its way out of the egg there will almost certainly be an element of communication between parents and chick as it attempts to break out, with the message from inside the egg being ‘Get ready to start feeding me' coming through loud and clear!

Bringing up the rear in the mating stakes, early June should finally see summer belatedly arriving for those intending to breed at higher latitudes. Exactly when Waxwings and Bewick's Swans begin to lay their clutches will depend on how cold the previous winter was and the exact timing of
spring's arrival in the frozen north. In an average year early June should see the Waxwings putting the final touches to their nest, while the male continues to feed his mate to ensure she will be fit and able to lay. Due to their much longer incubation time, the Bewick's Swans can't afford to waste a moment, and so those pairs that have successfully secured a territory should already be actively laying by now. The exact position of the swan's nest is considered crucial, and with no option of rearing their brood anywhere other than on the ground in this barren landscape, an experienced pair will, wherever possible, choose a raised, south-facing hummock or mound. Slightly elevated nests tend to serve the swans best as they give a good all-round view, enabling the pair to track the movements of predators across the tundra, and those locations with a south-facing aspect will also become ice-free quicker.

Once the spot is chosen, the mound is built by simply piling up vegetation from the immediate surroundings, so by the time they're finished the nest may extend over a metre across and reach a height of up to 50cm. Looking like a doughnut, the central area – which will hold the precious clutch – is then lined with a mix of softer grasses and any down the birds might have going spare. With a good territory so vital for breeding success, many experienced birds will not only return to occupy the same location, but even reuse the exact same nest from previous seasons, after any necessary running repairs have been carried out, that is. Immediately after laying, the eggs are white in colour, but then stain to a brownish-yellow after a few days, and while not quite up to the size of the huge eggs laid by Mute Swans, each Bewick's egg will still top the scales at around an impressive 280g. Clutch size will not only vary across the tundra according to the age and experience of the pair but also from year to year, however nests of between three and five eggs seem most common. Once laid, incubation will begin immediately and with both parents doing their utmost
to protect the clutch from both predators and the worst the weather can throw at them, they will hope to see their cygnets for the first time in just under a month.

Mid-June

The sight of Puffins bringing fish ashore will surely mean just one thing – the chicks, or ‘pufflings', have begun to hatch. Finally, after an incubation of around 41 days, which will have included three or four days of hard labour as the chick breaks free, the bedraggled puffling will emerge into the dark underground world that will represent its entire universe until it heads out to sea later in the summer. Another sign that pufflings have begun to hatch left, right and centre will be the sudden accumulation of remnant eggshells at the various burrow entrances, signifying completion of the first step in a life that, if all goes according to plan, could last over 30 years.

After drying off, the chick will resemble a charcoal-coloured powder puff, with lilac-coloured feet and a black stubby bill tipped with the white egg tooth, which might stay attached for a couple of weeks. For the first week after hatching, the chick is unable to maintain its body temperature and so would quickly chill and die without being brooded continuously by one of its parents. Rarely needing to eat on hatching day as it finishes off the last of the egg nutriment inside its body, it will quickly develop a keen appetite as the first food items are transferred carefully from the parent's bill to the chick's ready gape. Like most chicks on a rapid weight gain course, the puffling will initially spend large parts of the day sleeping, only becoming more animated once a little older.

The young Puffin's diet consists of pretty much the same food as their parents, with typical prey being a combination of Sandeels, Sprats, small Herring and young stages of fish
(gadoids) in the Cod family, such as Whiting and Haddock. Of all the prey brought in, by far the most frequently caught and important item will be Sandeel, with most Puffins in British waters catching the Lesser Sandeel. These small and silvery-coloured eel-like fish have long fins, a forked tail, protruding lower jaws, and are very familiar to anyone who has watched adult Puffins returning with bills full of them during the height of the breeding season. The timing of their life cycle can vary around Britain, but certainly populations surrounding the Shetland Isles tend to spawn in December and January. The eggs then stick to sand grains on the seabed until hatching, when the larvae become pelagic and float around with the zooplankton, until ultimately transforming into the small recognisable Sandeels by May or June. As their name suggests, Sandeels spend much of their life buried in the sand, but in the summer occur as large shoals in the water column when feeding on plankton during the day, before returning at dusk to spend the night tucked up in the sandy seabed. Usually found in waters at depths between a few metres and 70m, this annual harvest is easily within diving range of any foraging Puffin with a hungry chick to feed back on dry land.