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?