{"id":1916,"date":"2011-04-25T23:04:15","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T22:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1916"},"modified":"2013-11-09T16:08:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T16:08:37","slug":"a-holly-blue-and-more-fluffy-ducklings-and-goslings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/a-holly-blue-and-more-fluffy-ducklings-and-goslings\/","title":{"rendered":"A Holly Blue, and more fluffy ducklings (and goslings)"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Among the numerous butterflies seen in the garden the one I hadn't yet managed to photograph (or identify) was the small blue butterfly that's skipped its way along the boundary hedge several times over the past week. Today I was in luck and it settled on one of the low shrubs. I'm far from expert at identifying these, but I'm reasonably sure this is a holly blue (please correct me if I'm wrong. I can take it!).
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The rest of today's photos are from another visit to Falmer Pond, in the latter part of the afternoon. There are now three families of ducklings: the original clutch which are looking all grown up, a small group of four, and the newest group of nine. I'll try to keep track of numbers, but it seems that mortality rate must be quite high. Unlike the goslings they don't have powerful protectors against predators, nor like the moorhens do they keep to the more inaccessible parts of the bank. For now though they are doing fine.
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The goslings are thriving, ably protected by a trio of geese (two greylags and a giant (feral) domestic white goose). Here's the family group.
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And here's the white goose issuing a warning not to venture too close.
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I kept my distance, but a long lens is more then able to outreach a goose's hiss so here's a little cuteness overload to end this Bank Holiday. \ud83d\ude00
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\"Nature<\/a><\/span>
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D. The butterfly was photographed with the EF 100mm f\/2.8L macro IS USM, and the duckling and goslings with the EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[992,989],"tags":[1176,340,1194],"class_list":["post-1916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-butterfly-insects-2","category-water-birds-birds-2","tag-duckling","tag-gosling","tag-holly-blue","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t