Charlie, I can hardly tell you how envious I am of you for that fantastic aquatic birds' refuge you have yourself there behind your workshop. [img]smile.gif[/img]
While I do love geese, I unfortunately have not had much opportunity to see and watch them with my own eyes. I have always lived in big cities and at least here there are hardly any geese in public parks and such. There are plenty of ducks, above all mallards, which I like a lot for their peculiar way of always looking so extremely pleased with themselves, swans and occasionally also coots.
Thank you very much for the photo (is it of Gentle, right? To which (sub-)species does she belong?) and the very beautiful gif image, which I will surely use somewhere in a signature. That has been awfully kind of you. [img]smile.gif[/img]
And Epona is right, your "Psycho Coot" story was absolutely hilarious! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]
Speaking of coots: Some years ago, I was sailing with some friends on some Duch lakes (Loosdrecht). For our lunch break we had stopped at a small island, where there were also a number of coots about. We were having a picnic and I was sitting there, cross-legged, holding a sandwich in my left hand, with that arm resting on my left thigh. I had raised my right arm to drink from a bottlewhen I felt a touch on my right thigh ... and then I was just stunned when I realized what had just happened: apparently, one of the coots had just waited for the exactly right moment, when I was distracted, had then dashed up to me, hopped onto my thigh, had reached in
under my arm and torn a big chunk out of the sandwich
I was holding in my hand! I just could not believe how clever and daring that little bird had been!
Now, if that coot had been your "Psycho Coot", he probably would have mistaken my thumb for a beautiful whitish stick ... and would still be dangling from my hand as I type this.
Finally, did you name "Lonely" before or after she turned into a "hen fatale"?