Christine's walking & birds blog

We returned to our village walk today, and I was chuffed to see what I thought was a pair of pintail on the river. But when they hauled out onto the bank to graze, I realised that if the drake was a true pintail, then he was definitely playing away with that duck - which looks like a mallard.


He seems to be a genuine pintail although I'm not sure about the brown patches on the belly. I think pintail/mallard hybrids are fairly common, and this drake was certainly serious about his companion - fiercely chasing off a drake mallard that came calling.

At home, this hoverfly had emerged; each year I have fun trying to photograph it (or a similar) as it patrols the airspace over the rotary washing line, hovering in the same place for ages so that I raise the camera hopefully - and then darting sideways at the speed of light before I can click the shutter button. Today, I managed to catch it sitting still.


I think it's an Eristalis intricaria. The old tennis ball is one of four, which Greger split and then pushed onto the (sharp) ends of the dryer arms after he'd bashed his head on one while mowing the back lawn!