On the lake, two Black Swans were practising their synchronised swimming. They were very good at it. I must admit that I was surprised to see two Black Swans on this visit as, over the last few years, I have only ever seen one Black Swan on the lake. Maybe another swan has been added as a companion?
Further along the path I was trying to take an "arty" photograph of a Greylag goose that was standing behind a pretty bunch of cow parsley (or Queen Anne's Lace, as I believe it is called in the USA).
When I got nearer to the goose, I realised that he was standing guard over his partner and their young goslings.
There is a little house at the edge of the lake, not in any photographs this time, and just past it there were several interesting ducks - well interesting for me anyway.
A Ruddy Shelduck was standing underneath a tree.
Two colourful Shelducks were having a chat nearby.
A Common Goldeneye was taking a swim in the lake.
A Grey Heron was standing on the boardwalk that leads to the little gingerbread-style house. There was some pretty vegetation in the background.
When I rounded the end of the lake, I came across several Greylag geese who had banded together in order to look after their loads of little yellow goslings. Here they were standing at the edge of the water, behind grass that was full of daisies.
A few of the goslings were standing and sitting on the grass and are so small that they were almost hidden by the daisies.
Danger, in the form of a young Herring Gull, was lurking nearby. The adult geese started making lots of hissing noises in order to try and get rid of the intruder.
It did not work that well as the gull just went and stood in the shallow water not far away from the goose families. I did not stay long enough to find out if it managed to grab any lunch for itself.
Round the other side of the lake, in the distance on the bank of the island that is in the centre of the lake, there was a mother Red-crested Pochard with a bunch of little ducklings. The male Red-Crested Pochards were swimming around in the water in front of the female and her family.
On the bank near me, a couple of Moorhens were having a bad-feather day in the wind.
Here, also, a Northern Pintail drake was having a pruning session.
Not far away there were a couple of Bahama Pintails and a male Tufted duck.
I managed to take a good close-up photograph of a strangely-coloured Mallard drake with a brown body instead of the usual light-coloured one.
It turned out to be a day for seeing a lot of grey squirrels or ,should I say, tree rats. This one was running around along the branches of a tree. Here it is just before it jumped onto the ground.
The squirrel is modelling nicely here - wearing a daisy flower on it's head!
It was then joined by a couple of Pigeon pals and is still in modelling pose.
A white Ross's goose was at peering round the base of a large tree. Was it looking at the Coot on it's nest?
Above, crawling round the tree, was another very agile grey squirrel. How do they manage to do that?
Below, the white goose appeared to have lost interest in the Coot's nest.
A little further round the lake there was a female Gadwall.
Nearby was her partner - a Gadwall drake.
There was also a female and male Pochard - plus corner photo-bombing black Carrion Crow.
A little further round the lake there was a bed of shrubs and, almost hidden behind the foliage, an adult Coot was feeding it's small Cootlet.
Today the park seemed to be overflowing with grey squirrels. Here another one is in modelling pose in front of a group of beautiful pink irises.
Back to almost where I began my walk I came across a Starling with it's beak in the grass, probably in the act of pulling out a worm or similar crawling creature.
The flowerbeds at the entrance/exit to the park were full of brightly coloured tulips. There was movement among the flowers and here, once again was yet another grey squirrel in modelling mode.
The squirrel kept hopping about amongst the flowers, every so often popping it's head up and posing yet again!
I am usually more interested in the ducks and geese, rather than tree rats, but there seemed to be so many today that I could not resist taking photographs of them.
My camera and I had yet another great walk round the lake in the park and we both enjoyed seeing lots of different sorts of wildlife - even the "tree rats".
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