On Saturday, I spent a full day at the Barnes wetland centre, greeting visitors and answering queries, and patrolling the hides and the childrens' playground. Translated, this means I spent all day wandering round in the sunshine, talking about one of my major hobbies, and getting excellent views of kingfishers, snipe, and a host of duck of many species, the very beginning of the move off their breeding grounds. The first picture is a hunting heron, with a small fish in its beak, but I also made a special effort to visit the collection of foreign wildfowl. Here are a few of the most engaging.
From top to bottom, they are the Coscoroba Swan from South America, Red-breasted geese from northern Europe, a White-headed duck from southern Europe, and a Black-bellied whistling duck from North America - and yes, it does whistle! I will be getting much closer than this is a couple of weeks - but I'll save that for another post.
I'd love to see snipe! My father, an excellent and committed naturalist, used to shoot them in the 1930's - how times have changed (and not always for the worst). It's always nice when the time comes for the ducks to slough off their drab eclipse plumage and become so wonderfully patterned again. This is one Cat that watches rather than chases the birds.
Posted by: Peter the flautist | Sunday, 16 September 2007 at 09:10 PM