Ducks Revisited

 Walking by the river earlier today, I paused at a spot where the ducks (every one a Mallard usually) congregate to dabble, squabble and rest up in company in the shade of the trees. They are quite fearless of humans and barely bother to get out of the way of passersby. As I was watching the action on the water – all pretty placid on this occasion – I noticed a tiny coot chick was swimming about rather forlornly on its own. There was no sign of a parent bird nearby, and the chick looked horribly vulnerable – but maybe I've been conditioned to expect carnage by seeing too many episodes of Springwatch: the latest series seems to have contained an extraordinary amount of blood-curdling footage of animals blithely devouring other animals, often alive, usually smaller, sometimes their own offspring. Red in tooth and claw indeed, not to mention beak...
  Hoping the coot chick would be fine, I returned my attention to the ducks, birds that are always a pleasure to watch, though they certainly have their deplorable habits (gang rape for one). I had a vague memory of a rather good poem in praise of ducks, but I couldn't remember who wrote it, only that he was a friend of Ivor Gurney's, that he served in the Great War, and that there was an unusually engaging photograph of him in uniform – I remembered the photo clearly. I had, of course, written about him (back in 2016); his name was F.W. Harvey, and here is the link to his 'Ducks' and 'In Flanders', and to that engaging photograph...
  Later on this riverside walk I had a cheering encounter with a magnificent Red Admiral, fresh, bright and full of life – my first of the year and very late, but it's been that kind of year.