Cootlings

I returned to Wandsworth Common this afternoon to photograph the cootlings, and was thrilled to discover that there are now many more of them: at least two more pairs now have cootlings (one pair has three, and another four), and the new ones are tiny!
They look even more extraordinary when they're younger: the fronts of their heads are red and rather bald, and they've very dramatic red and yellow tufty heads and necks. Their tiny wings are also slightly tufty...
They're truly bizarre, and were they not with their parents it'd be hard to guess what they would grow into...

I was trying to photograph the family with three young coots from the little bridge over the pond (under which the heron was sheltering in a previous blip), when three (human) children ran up and shouted, "Penguins! Auntie, auntie: the penguins have babies!".
The aunt approached, so I thought "Phew - I won't have to correct the whole penguin thing...", and she said, "Oh, I see, how sweet!".
Hum. I don't imagine that she thought that they were penguins, but she certainly didn't correct the children.
Sigh

These two cootlings belong to the parents with four young, but I was leaning as far out from a little pontoon as I could to snap these two, and the other two cootlings were further around and deeper into the bush, so I couldn't photograph them as well.
I took lots of photos, including some of tufted ducks and of swans, some of the older cootlings, and also pictures of the parents feeding their young (beak to beak: awfully cute!), but this one seemed best to show quite how extremely peculiar they look!