The Birds of the Blue Lake; The Song of the Gulls

"Song of the Gulls" is a beautiful piece of music on arty prog rockers King Crimson's 1971 album "Islands".

This is of course nothing like what gulls sound like close up. "Clamour of the Gulls" would be better, "Squabble of the Gulls" better still. Both of these conditions were very much evidence as I walked around the Blue Lake just after Christmas, in the context of the birds having a wild aerial dogfight as they contested for bits of bread launched at the ducks by a toddler and his parents.

These are black-headed gulls, none of your big beastly black backs that tear up the rubbish tip up the cycle track, or the herring gulls that steal fish and chips from crying children at the seaside.

In winter plumage, the black-heads do the opposite from the rest of us, waiting for warmer weather to put on their hats.

They are mad.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 08.01.16

The Birds of the Blue Lake - The Tufted Duck

After mallards, tufties are probably the next most common duck species in the UK that your average town dweller will come across. Out in the sticks in winter teal and wigeon may be far more numerous; but they don't seem to visit urban bodies of water.

I've never ever seen a tufted duck chick, and in summer they tend to disappear to breed I know not where. But with their yellow eyes, drooping crest, and precision plumage that makes them look like models, they are very characterful little ducks indeed!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 29.12.15