Egyptian Geese: sad news...?

Well, I wasn't sure what I was going to photograph today; I wasn't really up for braving the (heavy) rain... I'd pretty much decided that I'd keep today's photography inside on account of the inclement weather (for my sake), but then I drove to meet up with a friend, and the weather let up a bit, so we went back to check up on the goslings on Clapham Common.

This was the scene when we arrived; I don't know where to start.
Yes, that is an absurdly cute bundle of goslings huddling to keep warm in the cold and wet...
I took quite a few photos, but this one seemed less obvious than uploading another picture of goslings gosling-ing about. Perhaps I needn't have chosen a less obvious one, but I was quite pleased with having found an angle showing both the goslings and droplets.

Anyway, the potentially sad news is that there are only 8 of them. Until today, there have always been 9...
I'm trying to convince myself that Number 9 has been:
a) (temporarily) mislaid, and might yet be reunited with the rest.
b) rebelling, and has taken off on a motorcycle to tour Europe with Keane...
or
c) gosling-napped for being simply too unreasonably adorable, but is being well-cared-for.

*Sigh*.
In any case, the goslings are now much larger, and are looking very well.
After shivering in a heap for a while, they all started stretching (legs, "wings", and necks) and then suddenly got up together and went off (tiny wing[let]s flapping to stretch them or perhaps to practise) to graze with their parents.
It was all too adorable, so we had to sit down and have a coffee, which was ace and well-timed because it started to rain again.

A wonderful afternoon (but for the distressing news).