When I first noticed this brood of initially five, now reduced to four Moorhen chicks at Cosmeston’s dipping pond, they had just hatched and, though I tried to get photos, the tiny bundles of black fluff were staying well concealed behind clumps of reeds. Six days later, on a subsequent visit, the chicks had grown enormously and were much more confiding. And – this always amazes me but these Moorhens generally have three broods a year – mother Moorhen was already sitting on a new nest, while dad tended to the first brood.