Water on a duck's back

I spent this morning expunging the most festering items from my to-do list.  Sadly the only satisfaction this gave me was that I can now see the surface of my desk again: there's still a huge heap of paperwork there needing to be dealt with, and all of it's urgent, so I don't really feel as if I even gained some breathing space. Maybe I should have tackled the less festering items first, and simply filed the mouldy green stuff vertically, in the nearest handy receptacle. Hey ho.

Anyway, by the time I'd finished my self-awarded penance I'd lost the chance to go out anywhere interesting, but I desperately needed to be out somewhere... so, back to Stratford it was. There I discovered that yesterday's little group of Tufted Ducks had proved my prediction correct, by leaving overnight. However, a new group of seven males had flown in to replace them, and these were noticeably more intrepid, coming in close to the Bancroft wharf among the other waterfowl, and repeatedly diving for food. I spent a long time with this one, trying to catch the precise point at which his bill entered the water, but despite taking a lot of photos on high-speed burst, I still didn't manage it. Here he looks to be giving me a baleful side-eye, but he can't help the fact that his eyes are stuck on the side of his head, and in reality he wasn't interested in me at all. He was preparing to dive again, by stretching his head and neck upwards and slightly backwards - the further up and back they lean, the closer a Tufted Duck is to arcing forwards and downwards into a dive - and it was this attitude that gave him a slightly strained expression.

Two groups of Tufties moving through in two days has to mean that the northward migration of these little ducks is properly under way.