Gadwall Six

Today turned out to be not quite the day that I thought I would be having.  The bike MOT was done and dusted in an hour, and when I called at Southmead Hospital to visit Janet she had just that minute been discharged.  So I kept her company in the coffee shop while she waited for Incredibish to come and collect her and then the day was my own.

Gadwalls can at first sight be taken for female mallards, and at a distance can look a rather boring and uninteresting bird.  But when you get closer and look at the detail you can see the rather lovely detail in their feathers.  Gadwalls like to hang about near coots.  Coots dive to the bottom for their food and the Gadwalls benefit from the surplus material that gets brought up in the process.