The low-lying land, once salt marsh, on the south side of the Deben estuary is drained by dykes which lead into these larger bodies of water, fleets, which are, when necessary, pumped out into the Deben. This is King's Fleet, and we walked along it today not seeing much of interest until....
....we suddenly couldn't believe our eyes, for proceeding royally along the fleet, in the company of a mute swan, was a black swan with a spectacular....
....red bill. The internet tells me that most black swans in the wild in Britain, while native to Australia, are escapees from UK breeding programmes, but the feral population is now beginning to breed, though it is not yet successful enough to produce a stable population.
The fleet widens as it approaches the Deben and the local mute swans seem to favour the fields of winter wheat on either side of it. As we walked past they were joined....
....by skein after skein of geese, coming from the north.
Silhouetted against the brightness of the sky it was difficult to identify them but once they had landed and settled....
....we could see that they were brent geese.
As we walked skylarks serenaded us. They've been around all winter but they seemed unusually cheerful today. Understandably so - although the sun only appeared in fits and starts, the temperature soared over 10C for the first time in many days.
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