The local estuary is looking something like a Roman bath house.

The customers flock to the baths for their daily constitutional. The Canada geese are taking advantage of the safety of the tide being out some distance from the road nearby, while they still have the water for an escape from any people or animals approaching by land. Worst case, they can fly away.

But the day is warm and they are comfortable.  They are hard at work preening their feathers, nibbling away parasites, and  splatters of grit and goo after dipping their bills in the greasy uropygial gland on top of their back end at the base of their tail to smear a little Goose Brylcreem onto their feathers. This also helps with waterproofing. Having not a feather out of place improves the aerodynamics when they fly.

Even the mergansers are busy preening. She doesn’t seem to care that she has a “man” on either side of her, watching her tidy up.

 

Everyone is seriously on task.

But this one must have plans to go camping and maybe do a bit of trout fishing. See her testing her newly cleaned wings?

 

While you are waiting for my next post, why not check out one of my five novels? Just click on the cover of the books at the side of this post. Or you can visit my website: anneli-purchase.com