Sharing

R and I had a wonderful day with the Boy Wonder, who was on absolutely top form. It was so much fun that we've been exchanging anecdotes ever since we left (with the Boy standing in the doorway, waving energetically and yelling "BYE! SEE YOU! BY-YE!!" right till the moment he couldn't see us any more).

This afternoon, because the weather wasn't great and B wasn't especially keen on a soft play session, we ended up in the further, smaller park on a double mission to have a cardamom bun (B) and coffee (R and me) at the Swedish café, and then feed the ducks at the pond. We haven't been to this park for several months, and it was a pleasure to be back. The café was selling chunky shortbread as well as buns, and noticing that R had bought one, B said, "What is that for?" "We're going to share it," I said - meaning me and R, but clearly not being specific enough. "Yes," replied the Boy, who was already clutching a cardamom bun the size of his fist, "we will have to share it." So we did.

Over at the duck pond B was so amused by the antics of the mallards, as they competed for chunks of seeded wholemeal, that he almost turned himself inside out laughing at them. In some of my photos his expression looks positively demonic - which is unfortunate because he was actually being delightful at the time, trying to share the bread around as fairly as possible. As I knelt on the flags taking photos R noticed this robin sitting on the pond railing behind me, looking hopeful, and when we pointed it out to B he immediately wanted to give it some food as well, so I encouraged him to walk slowly towards it, stop a couple of metres away and then throw a piece of bread on the ground. After just a couple of seconds the robin flew down and collected it, which made the Boy very happy.

Even though I know that robins are unusually bold little birds, and the R5 is an unusually good camera, I'm still slightly surprised that I was able to capture this scene with the 100mm macro. I find myself wondering what it might have looked like through the new Canon 200-800mm lens; I suspect I'd have been hard-pressed to get much more than the eye and the bill in the frame.