The coot, sitting in a nest composed primarily of a Tesco shopping bag and other bits of rubbish, is a really sad sight when it is so easy to provide good quality nesting material. And you can clearly see that most of the pontoon is submerged and that the whole thing is slowly sinking (you can click on the photo to see the larger version). It really is miserable.
As Jerry says, with all the income generated from the massive development projects on Rotherhithe, one would have thought that Southwark Council could afford to refurbish a few nesting pontoons. Ridiculous really, as well as thoroughly depressing. It does need to be addressed.
Agreed, they have been a sorry sight for a few years now, the plastic bags make me particularly depressed although perhaps the birds like them for their waterproofing qualities?!
ReplyDeleteI had a look around the web, because I wondered if it might be something to do with being attracted to bright things (like magpies) but I didn't find anything useful. I did stumble across this article on the BBC about how kites (birds of prey) use plastic in nests as a show of status - not particularly relevant to water birds but a really interesting read:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12231819