When ducks attack...

Started the day with a chiropractor appointment. Nothing like kicking the day off with a spot of electronic massage and a quick snap of the lower back!

Leejohnaire and I then carried on to the hospital to have his chemo pump disconnected. I’m starting to get used to driving along and suddenly finding the passenger window opening and L leaning out with a camera when he spots something that might make a good blip. I’m afraid I still got anxious, however, when he asked me to drive onto a car service lot so that he could photograph a strange yeti holding up a sign informing people that their car inspections were due! I haven’t developed the necessary chutzpah for taking photos of anything, anywhere, no matter who is around.

On the way back, we stopped off at a small, local airport to see if we could capture some interesting shots of light aircraft. We’d not been there before and discovered that, because it has a sizeable lake on the property, it is home to several types of wildlife. L blipped a brilliant picture of a nutria (very large water rodent – looks a bit like a beaver with bright orange teeth) so I chose a shot of the Black-bellied whistling ducks. I love whistling ducks - they seem like the quirky members of the duck family. As their name suggests, their call is more of a whistle than a normal duck “quack” and, unlike most ducks, they spend a lot of time up high, eg standing around on tree branches (or rooftops in residential areas). These particular ducks were standing around happily near the lake bank for most of the time, ignoring the nutria that were playing around in the water and us stalking the nutria, but the ducks suddenly started ‘whistling’ madly at something. Not too sure what spooked them but I thought their low-at-the-front, high-at-the-back, beaks-wide-open formation would work well to intimidate most things. I certainly backed off!

We didn't get any pictures of planes in the end and unfortunately we only had one small camera between us today, so I think we’ll be back there again sometime soon with a larger camera each.