Wildlife at Home, the Wetlands and Lakeside Park

The pied-billed grebe has been absent from Lakeside Park for a few weeks, but this morning I spotted it again as the mallards swam in, leaving the grebe paddling around on its own. The grebe was still keeping its distance from anything remotely human. It fished as it gradually moved away: It submerged and then resurfaced carrying a fairly large fish for such a small bird. That fish then had to be maneuvered to head first: And then came the problem of actually swallowing a fish that large: As I took photos, I heard an eco bike pull in behind me. It was the gent I see quite often in the mornings having his breakfast at the table. He has a certain affinity with the animals at the lake. He told me on an earlier occasion how he happened upon the hatching of the baby snapping turtles and described how he'd put them in his cap and carried them down to the water's edge. We chatted for a while as we watched a red-tailed hawk way in the distance at the top end of the lake....

I had no plans to go to Lakeside Park this morning. It had been raining, and my google assistant assured me that the rain would continue. I'm not a big fan of the rain, but more importantly, the dense cloud cover at that time was really cutting down on the available light. I checked later at 7 AM and the rain had not started again. Perhaps my google assistant had got it wrong and even if the rain did start, I could always turn around and come home. I packed up my cameras, including the macro lens and off I went. I've been on holiday this past week, and when I ride to the lake this way (from home), I always dismount before walking slowly to the main seated area, trying not to scare anything away. I have the best view of the lake from there and can then decide where I should go. As I walked my bike along to the seated area, it was clear that someone else had already taken my vantage point: I kept my distance, and after shooting off a few photos, I looked around to see if...