Another change I made was to walk round to the left and go clockwise around. This way round there are numerous hides and several spots offering high viewpoints of the lake, and I took advantage of the second gap I came across. I witnessed the rescue by a male duck who prevented another male from drowning a female, and several not dissimilar situations where gulls seemed to fight over coots that another was shadowing. The latter situation seemed as if it might be that the coots were more efficient and more accomplished fishers; I think the gulls were either there to steal from the coot, or fish where the coot was successful.
I also noted that when the cormorant was landing or taking off, it was quite cavalier in its attitude towards the smaller birds that might be in its path, an attitude that seemed to be shared by the gulls. The most serene of the birds were the pochard and swans.
I never expected to be seeing the profusion of birds on the lake so late in the season, and bathed in such warm sunshine. Despite the recent high winds and rain there still a lot of leaves on some of the trees, though sometimes even more on the ground in numerous varied colours, with occasionally a carpet of silver leaves. As the sun sank lower, casting ever longer shadows the golden rays picked out some of the hides or individual bushes or trees, whilst as the sun set a flock of ducks swirled high above the lake, and as I was leaving the low sun drew shadows on the side of a white van.
College lake,teasels, cormorant,gulls, coots,pochard,swans,ducks
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