In which things fly a little on the fowl side.

Yesterday morning I got to do some birdwatching before work, grâce à some very unsuccessful bureaucratic business. Still a bit bleary-eyed, I slurped carefully on my Transatlantic Sweet & Spicy Herbal Blend tea while perched upon a dewy bench to observe the greedy but graceful gliding of those ever-popular long-necked beasts. Then all hell broke loose.

The swans, still in the whitening of adolescence, were going nutso. One troublemaker in particular was in full-on attack mode, stalking its compadres one by one before lunging for a beak fulla feathers, its head whipping forward like a striking cobra. Another seemed oblivious to this bullying/rite of passage in that it kept dipping its beak into the water and chattering with great cranial vibrations. 'Twas most peculiar.

The ducks were also rocking some sort of hullabaloo, flying around in a careening fashion and squacking in that ducky way that only ducks can squack. Two flew right into the Fancy Schmancy Venetian Pedestrian Passage by the water, landed, found themselves on some strange planet, and promptly flew out again, ryeeih ryeeih ryeeih ryeeih ryeeih.

The pigeons were just chillin', gearing up for another long day of flying rat impersonations.

On another day in the past, far away on the other side of the Binnenalster, two potentially monogamous creatures had their afternoon napping disrupted by the ever-approaching clicking of one of those stupid, flightless humans.

Speaking of lovebirds and Hamburgian waterworks, allow me to present the reason behind the last two+ weeks of silent bloggage:

(Altogether now: "D'awwwwww!")

Anyway. Interspecies Noms From Tourists Party!

Continuing on the topic of noms and swans and Alsters and wonderful parental units, here's another minute of another day. Click to observe silly swanny facial expressions up close.

(Those shots don't actually have anything to do with parental units, but whatev's.)

Now for something fleeting, like sunshine.

And just in case anyone forgot, giraffes are so cool.

Particularly when they are teapots.

...Sooo, yeahh.