Waterbirds: Stilts, Swans and Goslings

This is a collection rather than a single day’s work: waterbirds from a few different outings, gathered because they belong together.

The two black-winged stilts were photographed on the morning of 30 November 2018, wading through sunlit wetland shallows on those improbable pink legs. The rest came from separate visits to the water’s edge: a mute swan ferrying two cygnets on its back, which is one of those behaviours you wait years to catch; an Egyptian goose photographed dead head-on, staring straight down the lens; and a fluffy Egyptian goose gosling still small enough to be all down and no dignity.

Waders and park waterfowl are different kinds of subject — one demands patience and long glass, the other mostly demands you get low and wait for a moment of character — but the water is the common thread.