Tuesday 7 June 2011

Hail fellow, well met...

Hail - yes.
I walked down along the canal before going to get some bread and vegetables. It had been showery, so I was wearing a raincoat, but I wasn't expecting thunder, lightning and some hail.








I was glad I waited under a sheltering tree and walked on the extra bit to the Twelfth Lock instead of just going straight to the shops - I was rewarded by seeing a mallard with nine little chickies.


Just watch that little laggard scooting over the water. And what amazes me is how dry they are - this was within two minutes of the hail shower. You somehow don't expect those fluffy coats to be waterproof the same way adult plumage is. (Apologies for the wind noise, and also because the roads were wet after the hailstorm there's a lot of road noise from the traffic on the bridge over the canal. I tried some software to compress the video that would have taken the sound out, but I didn't like the result).




Look at them on their journey through the irises growing along the bank - sometimes they were pecking up at the vegetation.



1 comment:

Lorraine said...

Those ducklings are just too cute. You're doing great with the videos. Very entertaining.