When I left the house today, a buzzard was circling up over the building site near the forest. Along with that, there were 2 wood pigeons heading in the opposite direction, probably away from the buzzard and to top that, a carrion crow was sat looking proud on the fence.
We carried on down the road. It wasn’t very open, just a narrow road engulfed in houses. These houses do hold life though and perched on the roofs were 3 house sparrows and a single pied wagtail. Herring gulls and wood pigeons filled the sky with the beating and gliding of wings.
We crossed the road and entered the field that leads to the ponds. In the neighbouring field, carrion crows cackled, filling the air with the soundtrack of farmland. Then, I noticed a lone swift low over the field, looking for insects before the sun went down. Along with the swift, a swallow dived over the field, again catching insects.
When we got to the big pond and went down to the jetty, to our relief there were 3 mallards out on the water. They kept on swimming closer and closer until we realised they were not normal individuals… they were eclipse plumaged. This basically means they were in the middle of moulting into a different plumage. We went back to the little stream that was by the path.
We waded across the shallow water, climbed up the slippery bank and made our way through the dense vegetation. When we reached the little pond, we wondered how our moorhen family was doing. When we reached the clearing, a 2 note song pierced the almost silent air. A chiffchaff. We scanned the trees where we had heard the song but we didn’t find it .
Just then, we spotted the moorhen chicks. They were on the banks, hidden in the reeds on the other side of the pond. Just then, the adult and 2 moorhen youngsters were out on the water, heading for the lily pads on our side of the pond. The lily pads were in full flower and it was amazing to see that through all that murky water and scum, these beautiful white dots out on the water could flower.
The moorhen chicks were taking advantage of the lily pads and were using them to hop across the pond. Just then, we noticed that one of our mallard friends had somehow found its way to the pond and allowed really close views.
After this, we decided to head back to the house.
The Bovey Birder 
Very good account of your visit to the ponds and seeing the moorhen and chicks as well as seeing the mallards 🦆 in the process of moulting. I could almost imagine being there myself.Very interesting post.
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