Gunnersbury Park

My lovely wife and I had a special day in our local park (Gunnersbury, in Acton, West London, U.K.). The weather was grey and miserable, but the wildlife was as entertaining as ever.

We have a pair of Egyptian Geese that visit regularly - their cacophony of hissing and honking is unmistakeable - were out of the water, and we witnessed the first mating of the year, and the first ever of any species of goose here (we have the inevitable Canada, but also Greylag varieties). It was wonderful, and we have great hopes for Egyptian Geeselings (sp., I know...) later this year.

Our cygnet born last year is in fine form - large and almost completely white now, but sadly his mother passed away a couple of months ago - natural causes :-( Hopefully cygnet will leave soon in search of a partner with or without his dad, and both will start new families.

Having visited the park for many years now, we know when the Canada Geese are preparing to fly: there is a predictable series of movement patterns on the water, coupled with head-shaking and increased honking in the final stages. We witnessed all of this preamble at one point this afternoon, and I managed to run around the lake, predict their flight path, and be underneath them as they flew over. Only about 1.5 metres above me! A great view :-)

Then to round off a lovely day, I got OpenSolaris up and running with no problems whatsoever. Jeez, what a great Sunday!!!