Balance

A fairly standard day of report writing, dog walking and an afternoon surveying stoneworts at King's Dyke Nature Reserve. Alex and I had been out on Monday and covered half the ponds, and today we wanted to finish off the remainder. Although the weather was cooler, I felt shattered at the end of it and could hardly drag myself up the hill to the car.

I spotted this balancing cormorant on my lunchtime dog walk. This buoy is very popular with birds, particularly common terns and herons. I've only seen a cormorant on here a couple of times before - perhaps this one has found that it makes a good vantage point. Like many apparently black birds, sunshine brings out a whole host of metallic hues in the plumage.