Curious duckling

I’ve been so caught up in urgent and frustrating phone calls and messages since Saturday morning that I needed to get out and about a bit today so I took my camera off to our local park, the largest in South East London.

Until a couple of years ago, it was a home to the last public golf course in London and a much wilder place frequented by dog walkers and runners. A massive redevelopment has provided attractions for a greater diversity of people. Although it’s nice to see the park so well used, I can’t help being sad at the loss of unmanicured nature. I suppose I should check my privilege here.

Anyway, I went off in search of a couple of interesting-looking geese I spotted doing the parkrun on Saturday (me, not them). I found them but they promptly flew off and, of course, I had taken the wrong lens so I couldn’t capture a decent blip. Not that this one is particularly exciting, taken as it was between fence railings and wire. I think that this is a juvenile mallard, though its legginess makes it looks more like one of the adult coots nearby. In any case it came to investigate me while its mama caught forty winks in the background. (Extra)