West Ashling, Gold Mine.............

A detour on the way home this morning unearthed this little treasure, well may be not so little......
In the lovely village of West Ashling there's a proper village pond, stream and mill at one end with houses around the other three side, with a local road running close by. Sitting on a wooden platform toward the far bank of the pond was a Black Swan. I stopped to chat to a lady who was reversing her car out of her drive way, she said that until 18 months ago there had been around 15 Black swan resident on the pond, then one day 14 took off and head over to Bosham, the remaining Black swan can no longer fly, so he's all alone.
He is of course kept company by some Mute Swans, Coots, Moorhens and a couple of these, Swan Geese...........!!
My thanks go to Pete Butler for the tip off, well he only tipped me off about the Black swans, the Swan Geese were a real bonus.

You may not need to see a larger view, but hey, i couldn't resist.

j.