Turning to ducks

These ducks exhibited interesting behaviour this morning, elevating a routine walk to get the papers.  They waked out onto the ice, carefully launched into the channel of water and then swam underneath the ice to the bank, reversed the process. You could see their shadows underneath the thinning ice. There must have something good to eat near the frozen bank and this was an innovative way of accessing it.
It reminded me of the F.W Harvey poem about ducks – 
From troubles of the world
I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
Their heads beneath white wings
By water cool,
Or finding curious things
To eat in various mucks …………….
I watched them do this several times until I was interrupted by M who was also going for the papers and wondered what I was looking at. We exchanged an interesting socially distanced conversation about the habits of ducks and went our separate ways.
Nearer home the water seemed to have taken on a different colour – so brown it was almost black, and perfectly still. The moorhen was all but invisible except for its bright red beak.