Monday, September 10, 2007

Bird Watching Sunday

Sunday I had to work on an assignment on financial risk, so there was of course lots of gazing out of the window dreaming of better things I could be doing, and I kept on being distracted by these birds (*).

First up was the mother and family above. I have no idea what they are but the mum almost stepped on one of the youngsters and she was very noisy making a honking sort of sounds to keep them in line.

Next there were this diving black bird - a coot? Once it dived and the water was calm so you could clearly see the wave expanding from the point it disappeared. Then it reappeared outside the ring - so it was swimming faster than the wave was travelling.

Then I watched a swan: it was directly below so could see its feet under the water and they seemed to be going half the rate expected. What it actually was doing was left foot - pause - right foot - pause - etc so each leg was only doing every other push.

Finally there was this elegant bird from the M&S Oakham range which made a very nice dinner for me and two friends who came over for dinner:


(*) tut tut, did you think non-ornithological thoughts? Ok, there was this rowing boat with eight pretty young women, but, er, anyhow, yes, what was my point?

2 comments:

Katinka said...

*grinning*
I think the first ones are some kind of duck, and I hope not at all related to the bird nestled in gravy and trimmings!

(very jealous of your friends having their own private chef to cook them such delicious meals)

JP said...

There is still some chicken left over for those coming with gifts of yummy looking pie (I have ice cream)

Copy of Illiad optional ;)