Serendipity, with birds

[fivemack]

It was a gorgeous day today, and I went with my parents to Minsmere (the collection of artfully-shaped swamps and heaths here, just up the coast from Sizewell; don't reed-beds look odd in satellite images?). It felt as one would expect unmodified ground to, though the satellite picture makes it clear that it's as managed as any stately-home garden.

At one stage I left the camera on entirely the wrong exposure settings, so shot a sequence of deeply overexposed frames of a flying seagull: obviously most of these were junk, but one was really quite striking:

        

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

The first one is lovely, the most delicate of watercolours. I bet you can't manage it again!

[janetmk.livejournal.com]

Beautiful photos! Thanks.

[darcydodo]

*points*

Err, that's not a bird.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

It's in disguise!

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

Yup, that seagull is definitely a happy accident. I like the one of the member of the family anatidae on the water. (Is it a merganser?)

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

It's a teal. The yellow-outlined teal-blue streak around the eye is the thing to recognise teals by.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

http://pics.livejournal.com/fivemack/pic/00002ett/ (taken by me in the middle of Reykjavik, where a few pairs had stopped to admire the scenary) is a red-breasted merganser mergus serrator; teal are anas crecca, same family but different genus.