Showing posts with label ducks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ducks. Show all posts

Friday, 17 July 2020

Look, Duck and ...

The Avenues area, described by some wag as the Muesli Belt of Hull, is currently plagued by feathery fiends who cause untold harm to the economy, health, education and safety of the neighbourhood. Residents are wary of venturing forth lest they should come across a malicious mallard, the very sight of which is sure to cause respiratory failure, diarrhoea, apoplexy and general malaise not to mention corporal decay. Urgent research into a cure, a possible vaccine ( a quackzine? no seriously...) has shown adverse effects with patients reporting  webbing on the extremities and an irresistible desire to go paddling in Pearson Park. The Government assures us that the problem will be over by Christmas and is introducing legislation making duck pate compulsory festive fare. 

Saturday, 7 December 2019

Like water off a ...


Lately I've been reading up a bit on quantum physics and what 'reality' might be. I thought it about time I caught up on all this; the theory is nearly a hundred years old after all and besides it makes a refreshing change from Thomas Carlyle and his delightful but seemingly interminable French Revolution. I can appreciate that there's no analogy suitable for the behaviour of an electron or photon and how you can't know anything about it until you look and how looking changes everything, I can grasp all this... (and pace Neils Bohr I do not find it shocking at all but maybe I really  don't understand it ...) Anyhoo, it got me to thinking that perhaps, there is an analogy from quantum physics for the current election, how once it's over, and we sneak-a-peek inside Schrödinger's election box to see whose cat has died in there; the psephological wave function collapses, as it were, and all other probabilities become zero ... or maybe I should just get out more.
I can't help thinking that all the huff and all the puff of all the political classes flows so rapidly off the electorate's back that it has no effect at all. None but the most obtuse or gullible are going to be convinced by the performance of any of the parties or the not-so-subtle bias of the media. I'm guessing the vast majority made their minds up over the last three and a half years, since the Brexit Referendum and have seen what the Opposition has to offer (the Opposition, to stretch my analogy possibly to breaking point, seems to obey the Uncertainty Principle: you can know what its policy is right now but you cannot possibly know what its policy will be at any time in the future and, much like that old electron in the "only mystery of quantum mechanics", it 'seems' to want to go through the Leave and Remain doors simultaneously) and well, well we'll see. When Friday comes, and "democracy has democked" and the result is out who, I wonder, will be saying "I don't like it, and I'm sorry I had anything to do with it".

Wednesday, 4 October 2017

Some geese and a couple of manky mallards


I know, I mean, well manky is not a nice word but it seems among British birdwatching folks these beautiful mallard hybrids have been given this disparaging soubriquet, manky mallards. Maybe that says more about the birdwatchers than these individuals.


Manky, moi?


This guy was the size of a goose. Who are you calling manky?

Wednesday, 22 March 2017

Exit pursued by a duck


The little arena cum stage in the old dry dock has wet land areas at each end with planting and clearly this sheltered spot is just the place for ducks. If this place hasn't got a name yet, and I haven't heard that it has, why not call it the Daze; it's still tagged that way. 


Friday, 11 March 2016

You looking at me?


In town on Wednesady the weather was, well, good weather for ducks shall we say. I could see the front one was eyeing me up but then I noticed the back one was as well. All of which led Margot to give me my new word for the day:
Anatidaephobia:
The well based fear that somehow, no matter where you are or what you are doing, a duck is always watching you....

Have a nice day!


Friday, 6 February 2015

Pochard Confusion

Common Pochard ♂

I know you will have been worrying about this all day long and so, by way of clarification, Pochards in this country come in two varieties, common and red crested. In France however pochards are not ducks at all which reminds me à propos de rien that in the Lake District there's a pub called the Drunken Duck. I think that's enough ducks for one day.

Red Crested Pochard ♂ & ♀




Monday, 27 May 2013

First time for everything



Maybe they do it all the time, this sitting on a roof thing, and I have just failed to register it. Anyhow here's my first and positively last picture of a duck on a roof.

Sunday, 25 November 2012

Bit of birdwatching


This time of year East Park lake becomes the home for about twenty or so goosanders and every year I go along to take some pictures. And every year they stay just too far away for anything you might like to call a decent shot. (Yeah, I know, invest in a bigger lens ...) So I turn to the never knowingly shy black-headed gulls for my picture of the day. Below the best I could manage of those darn ducks.


Tuesday, 27 July 2010

A white pair

No visit to the park would be complete without some ducks in a pond. These are the whitest ducks I've ever seen.