Kleptoparasitism involving wigeon and coot at Bosherston Lakes

Just a couple of photos that I (Bob) have taken in the past of wigeon taking advantage of filamentous algae brought up to the surface by coot at Bosherston Lake. I think I may have placed these images on the Blog before. On the occasions I've observed this I did not detect any animosity between the two species.

Usually wigeon numbers are quite small here, compared with gadwall numbers, but I guess they regularly obtain food from coot this way. From WeBs counts gadwall numbers have been rising since we started doing these counts there in the 1970s. Unfortunately coot were not counted in the early years of the national survey, but the way things are going there may eventually be more gadwall than coot wintering at the lakes (see WeBs counts graphs below).

Happy New Year everyone.