... with one eye open.

By Chamaeleo

Goosle Goslings: Scaredy Goslings...

Better in large ("L"): see the splashes, and the reflection in the gosling's eye.

This'll require some explanation perhaps...
What happened? The short version is "a coot" happened.
The longer version: Mr. was grazing with the two goslings, and I was crouching by the bushes feeling all pleased to have collected my D800 and 24-70mm... The coots were squabbling in the water and one chased another one which foolishly decided that this was exactly the right place to splash out of the pond. Big mistake: it splashed out (you can see the water spraying in my image) and startled the goslings with one trying to scarper (but suddenly noticed that I was in its path) and the other one ducked before squeezing past to hide behind Mr.
*Click* -> *Blip*
Mr. was unimpressed by the coot and hissed at it, but it stood its ground (it was cornered between the bully coot in the water, Mr., the bush, and me...). After Mr. started to advance on it, it chose to dive into the thick foliage and made a huge amount of noise as it tried to scrabble through...

Silly coot.

Well, I was pleased to get this shot: I wish I'd managed to zoom out and get the scarpering gosling's legs, but it all happened so quickly, and I'm just thrilled that the autofocus kept up!

The Goosles were letting the goslings lead today: they followed them round and round the pond for about 45 minutes (the goslings kept checking out the edges but then turning their beaks up at them and moving on to choose a better place to make ground...) before Mr. finally got tired and got out at one of the beaches (they followed)... Mr. was being very short-tempered today and would jab the goslings with his beak and hiss if they came up to huddle against him. He didn't seem to mind them grazing near him, but he didn't want them leaning on him.

p.s. Yay, it is wonderful to have my D800 back; everything seems ship-shape, and I very much enjoyed getting re-acquainted with it.

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