The Role Model
One last push of the bicycle up the sandy, well betrodden, by now ditch resembling path that led to the top of the bank surrounding the speck of land and water that by the revealing of the long awaited summer turned into a miniature nature paradise. The view that one was met with was composed of an avalanche of greens and suntanned yellows. Green clutches of beach trees and bushes hiding the gurgling and racketing reed warblers from sight, who momentarily had decided to dart up from the reed beds surrounding the sandy shores of the loch to bask in the evening sun. Green water stretched around the little begrown island, where swans and herons nested and where great egrets rested, on, under their weight undulating branches, a white beacon of bright in the dusk to come, and many sandbanks on which ducks agitatedly flappingly quacked.
A look downward from the reached elevated position showcased a smidgen of savannah, long and short tusks of golden grass dancing with airborne partners. Crickets, Butterflies and the occasional Reed Buntings passing to get a look at the visitor on their way to quarrel over nesting space with their neighbours, the obnoxious and loud-beaked Reed Warblers.
A short stumble down the, with tall armed thistles in purple bloom fortified slope, through a thicket of beach sproughtlings and reed revealed a slender beechy peninsula that created an inlet of calm and secluded water, a safe haven for a mother coot and its young. Mother patrolled the area whilst Little One zig zagged joyfully through the maze of reed, halting before the odd water lily to peck at it intriguingly. Eventually mother, having finished her security check beckoned Little One onto a little sand bank. Thus the prebedtime grooming began. For a few minutes they incessantly plucked their plumage til they seemed satisfied and subsequently bobbed their way to the far end of the inlet, where a collection of twigs had surfaced. An odd waddle later and both, bobbing to and fro on their bed, necks tucked in, retired for the night.
