I think this is a duck of some species or other — it doesn’t look bulky enough to be a goose, but I might be wrong. Either way this huge but dead tree is certainly a good lookout post in the ongoing duck-pigeon conflict and was being protectively employed as such this morning.
The goose certainly gives the impression of being rather annoyed with the mallard: who, in turn, seems to be making a conscious effort to get out of the way of its bigger cousin. Not an easy one to get right thanks to all the sparkles on the Hebden Water — as a result it’s overlit — but it just about works.
This is, pretty much, the attitude I affected for most of the day. The weather was grim, and if it counted as ‘nice weather for ducks’, well, he’s doing his best to ignore it.
“OK, are you ready? I want you to get my best side…. THAT’S the one. Send me a copy….”
The colony of Muscovy ducks that used to live around the marina in Hebden Bridge, and peaked at about six individuals, seems to have disappeared — but members of the species have managed to find St Helena, in the middle of the ocean. Why does the one on the right not have the same facial bulges as the other? I suspect, just because it’s younger. They grow their faces over time. As do we humans, of course.
After yesterday’s exertions I did not feel like going very far at all; like this mallard, I was content just to sit and watch the world go by, to be honest. (And tomorrow won’t be much different.)
On another dull day, in all respects, the waterfowl of Hebden Bridge once again save things photographically. As I’ve said on here before, I do like mallards, they seem quite an agreeable species. The duck to the far right definitely looks smug about something.
I am irresistibly reminded of a drag queen at Pride, or one of those amazing Brazilian samba women at the Notting Hill Carnival, posing for the camera in front of a line of stern grey coppers…. Happy Wednesday, little feller.
High pressure and warm air idling up from Spain, apparently, made this surely the warmest and most pleasant November 12th in my lifetime — even on St Helena last year it was not as nice as this. I refuse to consider this a bad thing: not on the day, at least. I’m sure the ducks think it’s better than the alternative as well.
Let’s get on with another year, shall we? Three fowl (I assume, one duck, two geese) drifting by serenely on the Rochdale Canal is not any metaphor for life that I can think of, but it is a way of representing a peaceful (birth)day.
