It was only four days ago that I walked down to the River Thames and saw a goose with her new gosling’s sheltering under her feathers, with still more eggs to be hatched. Click to see entry.
Today I walked passed the nest, and they were not there, just goose down feathers and broken eggshells.
I searched for them but found nothing, only some baby wildfowl hiding under the bows of a boat. There was no adult with them, so maybe it was them.
Young waterfowl hiding on the River Thames
I looked further up and down the river for any signs of the missing gosling’s, had they swam away, had they been eaten, were they hiding? I could not see a goose with any young.
I did come across a female duck with her ducklings swimming up and down, but the mother had a strange behavior, taking a duckling into her beak and plunging it under water.
Ducklings on the River Thames at Kingston
Also there were cooks with their young, both the male and female adults taking turns in feeding their babies.
Baby coots on the River Thames