Family time at the Lake

It is 12 days since I visited the local Lake and took some photos of the Australian Coot family and other water fowl.
Today near the edge of the lake was a parent and one chick.

Look at the size of those big paddling feet. It is no wonder that the Coot chicks can scoot along like little speed boats at times.
There was no sign of the other parent or the second chick so I decided to walk around the path further in the hope that I would find them on the more sheltered side of the rushes.
No luck there but I could see the Pukeko family together in bulrushes much closer to the path. I set off in that direction but rounded a corner to see this family heading my way.

Caution was the option I took and after taking two photos of the high-stepping proud parents and their fluffy cygnets I retraced my footsteps and left the swans to their outing.
As I neared the path back to the shopping centre I spotted the two Australian Coot parents and both chicks.

Feeding the young ones was very much the business of the day. The parents repeatedly dived to pluck weed or vegetation to offer to the peeping chicks.

Then one of the chicks swam off in a very independent manner to balance on a bulrush and peck at the foliage or perhaps to rest up with a full belly.

“For every act of senseless violence in the world, use your camera to record random acts of beauty” Dewitt Jones

So in an antidote to senseless violence in the world here are some photos received by me during this past week. Soak up the beauty and light.

Swan Lake

As we ambled about our local man-made lake this afternoon the Black Swans were very busy attending to their personal hygiene and frilly white linen.

This “knot” is a preening Black Swan.

And this Swan was vigorously working water through all of its feathers.  It put on a wonderful water ballet performance for us.