Bird "fix"!

Look at their little eyes in large ("L").

Phew: this should (easily) bring my Blip Daily Bird Quotient (BDBQ) back up to average after the slight reduction that the "holiday season" caused... 16 Egyptian geese (quite a gaggle!), 8 mallards, 3 coots, and a tufted duck (can you spot it?). Some of the Egyptian geese in this picture belong to the broods that I was stalking following last year!

I visited the pond twice today (catching up...), but the light was very poor on both occasions so I didn't manage any satisfying captures of birds in flight (which typically feels like a more satisfying blip to me).

There was a v. dramatic moment this morning when a small family arrived and started feeding the birds; Snatchy Cygnet saw the assembled birds and humans from across the pond so took flight to take his place in the middle of the Food Landing Zone. He was flying at quite a pace when he arrived at the congregation of birds, but just flew/landed right in the middle of them causing a huge commotion. The gulls and ducks had just been squabbling in their usual way when all of sudden the huge cygnet appeared causing massive waves and urgent evasive manouevres (tufted ducks dove, gulls took flight...) and frantic squawking. The two children started crying because it was so dramatic! Silly cygnet: the swans are typically oblivious to other birds (going where they want, when they want) but this was taking it to another level.

For many more of my photographs of Egyptian geese click here. Some varied examples include:
Mother and goslings
Mother and father and fledglings
Gosling doing Pilates
Fledgling plumage
Mature adult plumage