Moorhen on Blackford Pond

This photo just came like this and I liked the colour and lighting - so here it is. The evening light on the pond can be beautiful.

Not a great deal happening at Blackford Pond with no baby birds - on the pond, anyway - there were some small jackdaws and magpies around. The huge cygnet is losing his brown feathers and will I expect soon be pure white. His bill is still salmon-coloured and it will be interesting to see when that changes (well, for me it will be, probably no one else will care an iota!). I haven't watched a cygnet go through these changes before. 

The moorhen nest in the tree is still inhabited, but no sign of babies yet. I have great hopes of that nest as I've not seen baby moorhens on the pond yet. No coots today, but there was a little grebe looking very dashing with the sun showing off its chestnut head and neck. It's such a small bird and it kept to the far side of the pond, so none of my photos did it any justice at all.

Otherwise, the new swan pair were swimming about, eating bread and preening and snoozing on the island, where they were joined by the cygnet. Not exactly a ménage à trois, but the adults put up with the cygnet and vice-versa. Also there were the usual suspects: male mallards, mostly changing to their eclipse plumage, very few females, a few tufted ducks, and herring gulls and black-headed gulls who came and went. There was also a tabby cat who was very friendly, but I'm not sure it would be quite so well-disposed to the bird and other small life about.