Wandsworth Common: Shoveler

More handsome in large ("L").

I really wasn't sure what to blip today; I spent a long time by the pond on Wandsworth Common this afternoon. It was mainly rather dim and overcast, but the low sun broke through the clouds sporadically, and made the lighting rather stunning. I chose this shoveler because they were the thing that made my day: I haven't seen one for months, and their iridescent plumage is rather splendid. I really like the females too, and enjoy watching them swimming around in circles as they filter fed. Nothing very dramatic in this picture, but I just thought that he looked particularly handsome...

I've made a Flickr set (15 pictures, including this one), including the following highlights:
A singing robin
A begging male shoveler (showing off its funny tongue)
A pleasingly pebble-shaped tufted drake
This same shoveler preening
A moorhen in a beautifully lit moment
Not the Goosles.
"Not the Goosles" is the pair of Egyptian geese that live on Wandsworth Common: they're weird, and not very good parents (they're much less alert, and fewer of their goslings survive...). Strange behaviour today: they were "making goslings" which seems a funny thing to do in December.

I also saw four parakeets mobbing a heron (The Heron) that had just caught a fish; they didn't manage to rattle it, and it just carried on flying away, but I've never seen parakeets do that before...