Fowl, er, foul goings-on for three vanished local chicks

My poor little Salisbury-related coot chicks, admired on this site last night as they blossomed in a local stream, have vanished.

How, why, where? Unfortunately, there are seldom answers only speculation when creatures of the wild disappear.

Tonight when I looked over the bridge to where the chicks seemed happy yesterday, even if the parents sloped off when they saw my interest, the nest was bare.

Cold and weak?

Might it be that they wanted to be like Mum and Dad and simply followed their parents' route out of the nest and into the lazy Hogsmill River to try out some swimming strokes?

The river and surroundings offer no clues. I looked online instead, choosing Wild Pro to tell me about these sweet little birdlets. The site told me that if the young chicks had become cold and weak, they might have benefitted from half an hour in a dark cardboard box, warmed to 30 to 35 degrees.

The heat around the bridge tonight rather dismissed that notion. However, the advice is strong on the matter of heat. 'Young chicks have a poor ability to maintain body temperature and are prone to hypothermia, hyperthermia, and burns.'

Four-legged critters, British and foreign, living around the river are the more likely causes of the vanishing, I fear, and there's no shortage of likely avian enemies, too.

Salisbury connection perhaps?

Wild Pro warns of other dangers of their birth-place. 'Watch carefully to avoid chilling and drowning when first given full access to water.' Had the parents been advised? Did they ensure their babes were water-wise before they were allowed to slide the inch or two into the river?

To vanish so suddenly makes one very suspicious. Coots are especially plentiful in my birth-place of Salisbury. Given the attraction that gorgeous historic place has for, well, Soviet intrigue, who can be sure that they didn't fall victim to further assignation attempts that the government's main Brexiteers have been warning us about?

Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com