Yesterday I treated myself to the luxury of a whole day on my own filming and photographing the ducks at Slimbridge.
The first species in my lens was not a duck but a crane.
As far as I can make out this is one of the birds reared at Slimbridge and released on the Somerset Levels, after great efforts had been taken to prevent the birds identifying with either the site or the staff involved.
Somehow several of the birds managed to find their way back to their foster nest site.
The first duck I filmed was certainly not the most colourful in the collection but probably one of the smartest - a Pacific black duck.
Next was this very colourful Australasian shoveler.
But my favourite species of wildfowl has to be the red-breasted goose.
Here are some bathing in slow motion.
And here are some very noisy birds sorting who's top goose.
The ferruginous duck is probably the only species that actually looks better in captivity than it does in the wild.
They used to turn up now and again at Radipole in the 70's and 80's and were always less than impressive.
Look at this little beauty though.
On the way back to Dorset I called in at a very pretty little place called The Shire where the birds have blue tails!