"I Know My Place" ....

.... said the water rail.

The rail family includes coots, moorhens and water rails. The bully boy coots are the top of the watery pecking order, then come the moorhens and the rails are at the bottom, harried by all. The water rails do have a trump card though, they're skinnier than the other two and can squeeze into reedy places inaccessible to their tormentors. The situation reminds me of the Monty Python Class Sketch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpZkKKbDgA

It's not surprising that rails are wary and don't often venture into the open. The one in my picture is regularly seen under the Bittern Hide  feeders. As soon as a coot or a moorhen appears it scarpers.

In other news, Snowy the white mallard is back on our neighbour's lake. Robins and thrushes have been singing from the very top of trees. A pair of crows were carefully choosing twigs from the corkscrew willow and a bee buzzed past my head.