weird words

The other day I saw a pigeon drown. At first, I didn't know what it was - was that a duck bobbing up and then down again in the pond? No, this bird was smaller and grey. It must have misjudged the thickness of the layer of ice on the pond, mistaking it for solid ground. The ice had turned out to be much too thin to take the pigeon's weight and it had plunged into the water, close to the small island in the pond's middle but much too far to reach for a bird unused to swimming. It came up again but couldn't stay upright, its head landing in the water again. And then it stopped moving.

The river and adjacent pond with parkland are within comfortable walking distance, so whenever there was an hour to spare I walked over (or I stopped on the way home from work in the last couple of days) to take some pictures.

I've been posting them over on twitter @sista_ray but I also want to dump them here in one place. I've started experimenting with twitter moments - which is a handy way to group tweets. Still, I can't quite let go of dreamdwidth and even livejournal (grudgingly accepted the TOS to keep up with what's left of my friendslist).

( Pictures )

Going on a seaside holiday of course you encounter gulls.

( Pictures related to gulls )

The kid being at the grandparents' and this being the summer holidays I indulged in a little picture-taking in the parkland close to our house.

I did not spot the cormorant again (yes, really) who somehow has been hanging out on the local river, but there were lots of butterflies, dragon-/damselflies, several species of waterfowl and all sorts of creepy-crawlies.

I'm doing this photo project on twitter called MissionFoto and the theme this month is Gegenlicht, i.e. Contre-jour or backlighting. I've been playing around with that a bit but there are also some more straightforward pictures.

( Under here )

Before I bring you the gibbons, here are some other various animals from Lagos Zoo:

( Water and land )