Boxing Day: Serenity on Mount Pond...

... well, all except for the coots. Look in large ("L").
The coots were being seriously savage and aggressive!

I've back-blipped colourful flames for my Christmas Day blip.

I went out for breakfast with my mother this morning, then we bought some bread rolls (the swans will be disappointed after the sourdough I gave them yesterday) and visited Mount Pond. The atmosphere was wonderful: there were many families taking Boxing Day strolls and feeding the birds, and the birds were there en masse (presumably for the feeding frenzy...). The scene was very tranquil: there was little traffic so the pond was very quiet, and there weren't lots of people but everyone seemed very cheerful. The birds were so well fed that they weren't even squabbling much (which added to the tranquility). The peace really was only disturbed by the coots: they were chasing each other about, and fighting and squabbling. I've never had such an easy time photographing the coots flapping/running skimming along the surface of the water, because it seemed to be happening almost constantly.

The only upsetting thing was that the gentle cygnet had blood under one of its wings which was sad: my mother thought it seemed undramatic, but I thought it seemed rather more serious. There wasn't that much blood and the cygnet didn't seem fussed, but visible blood is never good.