2 chicks bbc

At this time of year the symbols of new life — bunnies, eggs and of course chicks — are in abundance. Which one would you most like to cuddle? Bringing an almost comical pose to its cuteness is a Kentish plover Charadrius alexandrines juvenile. As the name suggests they used to breed in south east England, sadly this is no longer the case, and are now only rare migrant visitors to the UK. Beyond the UK this small wading bird has a wide range, including Qatar, where Sultan took this photograph. See his Kentish plover chick image.

It is the second time in just four years that such devastation — not previously seen in more than 50 years of observation — has been wrought on the population. In the colony of about 18, breeding penguin pairs on Petrels Island, French scientists discovered just two surviving chicks at the start of the year. The colony had experienced a similar event in , when no chicks survived. The unusual extent of sea ice meant the penguins had to travel an extra km to forage for food.

I worked on Bird Island research station, just off mainland South Georgia, for two and a half years as a zoologist, studying the albatross populations there. It was a real privilege to get to work so closely with such iconic birds and to get to see them throughout the seasons. From the pre-breeding period, where the albatross adults spend hours displaying to one another and reaffirming their pair bond, to the busy egg laying and hatching period in the summer, to the chick-rearing period where lonely chicks are left for days at a time on their nests throughout the cold winter, and finally to the moment at which an albatross chick fledges the nest and takes to the skies for the first time to go out to sea, not to return to its natal colony for years to come. Bird Island has one of the longest datasets of any animal in the world with decades of valuable data collected, and it is these long-term datasets which help us understand why seabirds as a group are currently undergoing drastic declines. One factor is being caught in fishing operations in waters much further afield from South Georgia.

These are external links and will open in a new window. A new pair of breeding ospreys, believed to be only the third in Wales, has produced two chicks at a secret location in Powys. NRW staff and local birdwatchers, who are monitoring the nest, said they had seen the two young popping their heads up to be fed. Parents Monty and Glesni were sitting on two eggs in their nest at the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust reserve of Cors Dyfi when a chick hatched at the weekend.