Always a surprise

The usual suspects. MAE©2011

Whenever you walk in nature, even on your standard route to your standard place, you know you will be surprised. It is not a matter of if but  when. That is certainly the case whenever I walk around Ruislip Lido. A camera that is ready to use may come in very handy...

Two lost Wigeons. MAE©2011

Normally there are always many "common" Mute Swans, Mallard Ducks and Canadian Geese around. All year long that is. And whilst they are of course interesting creatures, everybody knows them very well. I did speak about the surprise of seeing some Gadwalls in my blog from 6^th November.










But yesterday I had another surprise: There were a couple of Wigeons around. I had not expected that, since they need quite some land to graze like Geese and there is not much around...that is not disturbed by passers-by. And they are definitely not as cool as those Geese...who follow you for some more bread if they can.


Truth be told: there were actually only 2 Wigeons to be seen, so they may even have been lost or waiting to fly to some other place. But the surprise was nevertheless very well appreciated. I just hope that there will be more Wigeons who will find this place nice enough to stay a while.