Walking with birds

Truth be told, the black dogs are hanging around. There's kind of puppy-sized, but a bit snappy. Which is a shame, as I like dogs.

Fortunately the birds are more cheering than the dogs.

This morning the black and white dog and I walked along this river. It's where I saw a kingfisher and I have been hoping to do so again. Still no kingfisher, but I saw the mother moorhen with her chicks. The chicks are hilarious. They swim so fast - it's more like they scurry over the water than swim through it. Last time, I thought she had only two chicks. She swam down the bank to hide under an overhang among the reeds and one chick scurried behind her. The other was like a malfunctioning toy chick and sort of scurried circles in her wake, remaining where he'd been when I first saw them. I left so they could reconvene. This time, I saw she had five. One followed her under the bank between the reeds, one scurried in circles in her wake. The other three were still on the opposite side of the river. They approached level to the place where she was when I first saw her on this occasion. One swam across the river. One did a few exploratory circles and eventually crossed the river. The third was still circling on the wrong side of the river. Meanwhile, the mother and two chicks had somehow got out of the river and walked up the bank to enter the water where two of the lost chicks were. I wondered how the hell any of them made it to adulthood.

A little further along and two ducks took flight ahead of me. They rose complaining loudly and met up with three other ducks flying in the opposite direction. The two groups joined, but two of them seemed to want to veer right. One would do so, realise no one had followed and rejoin the group. This happened a few times then one broke off and flew defiantly right. The other four circled round, quacking, and when they reached the same place, another flew off to the right. So now three ducks circled loudly above me. Like the malfunctioning chick.

Next, I watched a crow take flight from a tree - one in the picture - and go to harass some falcon hunting above the meadow. The two wheeled around, the falcon all aerobatic delight and the more clumsy crow somehow keeping on his toes. Claws. The falcon suddenly did a completely perpendicular flight down, down, but the crow was as if carried in his wake and was still there as he righted himself and rose. He gave up and flew to the edge of the meadow where a different crow took up the chase, and as he flew on, that one was replaced by another. The crows had created a chain of defense and the falcon left. Impressive work by the clever corvids.

Next, ducks. The mother tilting her head to eye me. Then shepherding her young across the river and into the reeds. they, unlike the moorhen chicks and the adult ducks, kept in a neat formation. Well done, mother!

My friend Clare, AKA Dr. Doolittle, has been befriended by a pheasant. He races over to her every day and she feeds him - and his wife - corn.

I'd like a bird friend. Better than black dogs.