Earth: The Power of the Planet

[Arch]

No, I'll tell you what's sweet, so sweet it'll give you toothache, and that's the baby plovers I saw on the Nature of Britain on Sunday night. Ickle fluffballs on legs they was.

See the pic on this page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/nature/uk/records/classified/brand~nature+of+britain

The ones they showed were in a nest in a quarry, with massive lorry wheels rolling by just yards away....

 

[laurence]

awwwwwww, they are sweet.

i fed some baby Egyptian Geese earlier in the year... they are cute, their legs seem to grow first so they look like a big wall of fluff perched on two bendy pink straws. i was very tempted to run away with one (the parents were daft enough to let me hand feed them and wandered off). then i realised what noisy things the grown up ones are. once saw three of them standing by the road in richmond park, just honking at everything that went past (including me on the bike). daft creatures.

 

[Arch]

awwwwwww, they are sweet.

i fed some baby Egyptian Geese earlier in the year... they are cute, their legs seem to grow first so they look like a big wall of fluff perched on two bendy pink straws. i was very tempted to run away with one (the parents were daft enough to let me hand feed them and wandered off). then i realised what noisy things the grown up ones are. once saw three of them standing by the road in richmond park, just honking at everything that went past (including me on the bike). daft creatures.

Yes, geese don't always seem the brightest of creatures, although, that's based on our perception of 'bright'. I don't suppose many of us could navigate ourselves halfway around the world in our first year...

 

[laurence]

Yes, geese don't always seem the brightest of creatures, although, that's based on our perception of 'bright'. I don't suppose many of us could navigate ourselves halfway around the world in our first year...

the Egyptians can barely navigate out of the lakes in the park sometimes! mind you, they have spread from a few escapees in east anglia to being a regular feature in the parks of london now.

i saw a barnacle goose in edinburgh recently. just the one, with a flock of pinkies. he looked most lost, but was tring to fit in with them, despite being smaller and a completely different colour. i had the urge to scoop it up and take it on a train to the other side of the country.

geese have comically inquisitive faces. ducks have very non-committal faces, still comical though.