Born today

Today I finally managed to find the park I was looking for last weekend! Bit of a grey drizzly day, so not great for photography, but I'd heard it had a great lake and it didn't disappoint. The place was full of mallards, grebes, geese (with their little balls of fluff), tufted ducks, moorhens, coots, gulls and... pigeons.

And then there was this lovely lady. I got talking to one of the park wardens and he said this little cygnet was just born this morning! He thinks she's been sitting on about 9 eggs and this is the first to hatch. Very sweet :)




edit: I've just been reading about this park and thought I'd add a few comments. I think the article was from last year but I don't think the situation has changed since then. Victoria Park is situated in East Belfast, and is a designated Area of Special Scientific Interest. Unfortunately, it also happens to be right beside Belfast City Airport, originally a small harbour airport whose operations have increased considerably over the past few years. When City Airport began commercial flights, it was understood that the majority of planes would take off over Belfast Lough, as opposed to over the densely populated East Belfast, and over this park. Now almost 50% of flights take off over the city. I was there for about 45 minutes today and three large Ryanair 737s flew overhead, surprisingly low. As the park is home to large populations of Greylag Geese, they could prove a hazard to aircraft safety. Therefore the airport has been granted permission to cull goose and swan eggs, as well as adult geese, in the park. I think this is very sad. There's no reason why the City Airport should keep expanding, for its location it's already pushing the boundaries in my eyes; flights have gradually been getting earlier in the morning and later at night, the planes have been getting larger and it can't be pleasant for the people who live nearby, not to mention the wildlife in the parks and RSPB reserves. Belfast is a small city, in a small country, with a perfectly good International Airport for these kinds of flights and planes. I don't think these birds are the problem, but the huge metal ones certainly are.