A small Papango family

A good night's sleep meant that I have felt better today, and this afternoon I went to Western Springs Lake. Where there were almost no geese to be seen. The greylag geese had multiplied rapidly over the last couple of years, and they are aggressive seekers of bread from the human visitors to the lake. More than once I have seen adults, and more particularly children, running away and being chased by the geese. 

Beginning in November, the Council staff responsible carefully inured the geese to a system of screens to contain them. Once they had completely adapted to the presence, there were a number of closures of the system to allow capture and then the birds have been relocated in other settings well away and able to better cope with them than the relatively small Western Springs Lake.

There were a number of Papango (New Zealand scaup) family groups, and so my blip. The extra is a juvenile chaffinch, which was quite unfazed at being close to where I was.