"Come Along Children...........

.................do keep up". Saw this duck and ducklings walking past my garden gate - shoes on, jacket on, camera grabbed and got down to the beck (stream) just in time to see Mum taking the ducklings for their first swimming lesson. Have mentioned before that we have millions (!) of ducks in the village and this is first hatching as far as I know. They usually nest in someones garden and then waddle down to the water almost immediately. Two years ago, 12 hatched in the garden next door and as there is no fence between our two front gardens, I followed them down together with a neighbour and we held up the traffic until they had all crossed the road safely. Sadly, there will be fatalities over the next few weeks as some drivers can't or wont stop - horrid people - Grrrr.
I wanted to catch them in the water but where Mum decided to launch them was just under a bridge and it was too dark to be able to see them properly. It is so windy I had to take several shots as two or three of the little ones kept being blown over - actually it was quite funny to see them with their little legs waving about in the air! (The patch of blue in the left hand bottom corner is a tiny bit of the painted iron bridge and I didn't really notice it until I had posted the pcture!)

The morning started very bright and sunny but we are back to grey clouds again now - temperature at 10 deg.C (9-15am

Am almost ready for our Holiday - down to London Sunday p.m. - morning flight to USA (Texas) Monday a.m. - whoopee!! :-))))) - all being well.

Lower case "L" to enlarge - nicer!