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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Part 3...the rest of the day

As promised yesterday..here come the ducks...
This first image is of a duck that kept following us and l know he expected food of some sort but even when he discovered we hadn't, he still kept rubbing up against my leg.Funny thing.
Then all of a sudden there were ducks arriving from every where...all shapes, sizes and colours.One of the things that did surprise me was that there was very little noise from so many ducks! Have you ever really looked at the feathers of these birds. They are so soft, such amazing colours and shapes, and all so different, don't you just love Nature. Next images are of the different ducks that were in the pond.
Until today, l had not noticed what a beautiful pale blue beak this duck has. Funny how, when you see the same thing lots of times, you tend not to really look at it anymore. One of the things that l have really learnt and taken on board, is to always look at things, even when you see them every day. You become blind to amazing things, if you don't look at every day life and only look when in unfamilar places. I suppose it is like a friend of mine, who thinks the UK is boring and only enjoys herself when she goes on holiday. Her reasons are, everything is new to her, so therefore it is exciting. I think it is such a shame when people give up looking at their everyday lives, they miss so much.
The next duck looks as if maybe a mixture of many ducks but l think it looks so cute. Soft browns and greys and such a cute face! As you have more than likely guessed, l love ducks!

Do you like waterlilies? I adore then and every year at a pond on Wimbledon common, there are whole groups of them, these ones are bright, bright yellow. This pond also appears to have them too but don't know what the colour will be. The reason l am talking about them is this..have you ever seen their roots? If the water levels in the pond don't fluctuate, you properbly won't have seen them but the bulbus roots look just like claws and their colours are incredible.
See what l mean and these ones even appear to have legs!
As well as thinking these ducks are so clean-cut looking ducks, l love the way they just stand on one leg most of the time. A friend's little girl is convinced that they do only have one leg because she has never seen them on two legs! I am rather pleased with the reflections in this image too.
After l had been at the pond for about an hour, an elderly couple armed with their bag of bread, and started to feed the ducks. Straight away the duck that kept cuddling up to me, deserted me for them!!Oh so fickle! Anyway, this bird was so relaxed around people he actually took bread from the man's hand!
Then everything on the pond went frantic, as the woman threw a handful of bread into the water! The noise level went up quite a few decibels, the water was churned up and came in waves and the ducks were fighting each and trying to get the bread all at the same time. Fun to watch!
Decided it was time to go and see the rest of The Plantation. Next are a few images of ducks l passed as l left  pond area....
Don't you just love this shovel shaped beak. As l was watching him, he opened his beak and started to use his beak like a spoon and shovel up the water making slupping noises. It was very funny to see and hear!
This must be one of the most amazing ducks l have ever seen..... A Mandarin Duck... the artist in the sky must have been on LSD when he designed this amazing bird!
This was the path, made from small circles of tree trunk, that lead you away from the pond and on to the next bit of The Plantation.
Leaving the pond, l followed the path and came across this bush. I can never remember the name of it but it has gorgeous flowers in the summer, this amazing red in the winter and in the spring it is a pale yellow colour. What a wonderfully cheerful bush to have in one's garden when the days are short and the sky is grey!
After this glorious site, we left The Plantation and there in front of us was this tree,  there on the tree trunk was an upside down heart. Might use this image for a Valentine's Day card. I want to make a sort of collage of hearts from Nature for Tony's card. Pity it is upside down but actually thinking about it, that could quite interesting in amongst the other images in a collage.


Talking about shapes, the next tree along had a U shape half way up it's trunk. Perhaps l should go round the park and see if l could collect the whole alphabet in shapes from trees! Then l came across this next image. It really got me thinking. What an earth caused this sort of damage to this bark? A rampant deer, very large woodworms or a very annoyed woodpecker!!! the mind boggles!Ha. On a serious note, this is very serious damage to this tree and l don't think it will be recovering some time soon!

Perhaps it is the same "thing" that attacked and attempted to eat this hat?Ha! With this bit of murder mystery on the go, think it is time to end today's blog. Nightx


3 comments:

Marcie said...

What an incredible collection of ducks. Especially love the colors of the wood ducks!!!

Lynda Howells said...

thank you for leaving a comment and for reading my blogxxlynda

Paperfanatic said...

I think that lovely bush is the Dogwood Lynda. There is also one which has a bright yellow stem in winter. I think I prefer them at this time of year.