Who is that big-footed bird?
Life gifts us every day with small mysteries, encounters that arouse our curiosity and intrigue our inquiring minds. Like the odd-looking bird I noticed the other day, when I was walking along the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park. What could it be? It was about the size of a small chicken, with black feathers, a bit of white on its sides, a red beak with a yellow tip, and little to speak of in the way of a tail. The bird was awkwardly picking its way toward the bank on overlarge yellow feet, but what especially surprised me was seeing it step into the water and calmly swim off! Though its feet weren’t webbed, the little bird swam with ease, bobbing its head as it glided through the water. I guess those long toes must help with locomotion.
Not a coot!
No one around could tell me what the bird was, but I did learn that it wasn’t a coot — although I thought it looked rather like our American specimens. But no, I was told, that other black bird — the one over there with the big feet and awkward gait — that was a coot. (Its feet weren’t webbed either; rather, the toes were scaly, wide and flat and pale grey — spatulate might be the word. Frankly, I found them a little creepy-looking.)
Nor a goose…
Among the denizens of the Serpentine was a family of geese, so unconcerned by human passersby that I was able to get within about four feet of them, as they stood grooming themselves right in the middle of the path. Mama Goose performed some remarkable contortions, rubbing the back of her head against her back, and the goslings aped her movements. Satisfied with her ablutions, she plopped down for a rest, with a couple of her youngsters snuggling under her wing.
I was astonished at how tame these birds were and can only conclude that they had learned long since that they had nothing to fear from people. That speaks well of the Britons’ love of wild creatures; sadly, I have a hard time imagining something like this happening in a park in the United States.
Revenons à nos moorhens
A few days later, I met more of the odd little birds that had originally intrigued me in the pond surrounding the Lord Holland Memorial in Holland Park; this time I saw a male and female with their six chicks. As the chicks swam around the small pool, their parents scavenged on land for food, then periodically marched back to the bank to feed whichever of the six got there first. The babies wore fuzzy black with matching outsize feet, the red of their beaks providing the only flash of color. Again, no passerby could identify them — though several stopped to watch and take pictures. In this age of Facebook and Instagram, the desire to get a good shot seems uninhibited by our ignorance of what we are shooting!
DIGRESSION: Wherever I went in the UK, I heard birdsong. Not as the accompaniment to some romantic flight of fancy but as part of the backdrop of every day. I couldn’t see these birds, so I have no idea what they were, but their music seemed more present to me than birdsong usually does at home. Is this because there are more singing birds in Britain? Or because their songs are unfamiliar to me? Or is it because I’m so used to the birds at home that I hardly notice their songs anymore (except for those annoyingly early risers who are singing their morning serenades well before I want to be conscious)?
However did we know anything before the internet? A little searching brought me to the website of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), founded in 1889 “to counter the barbarous trade in plumes for women’s hats, a fashion responsible for the destruction of many thousands of egrets, birds of paradise and other species whose plumes had become fashionable in the late Victorian era.” Among other things, the site offers a search tool for identifying 408 species of birds found in the British Isles, based on size, shape, color, habitat, and various other factors.
I entered my information and voilà: my mysterious avian friends were moorhens and, I was pleased to note, belong to the same family as coots, crakes, and rails. Further, I learned that “you can see moorhens around any pond, lake, stream or river, or even ditches in farmland. Moorhens can live in cities as well as the country.” The site made no mention of their big feet, but perhaps the RSPB didn’t want to offend. At any rate, I am content with my discoveries, one of the chief pleasures of which is being able to make sense of this little piece of the universe and thus to expand my known world.
Here’s a toast to the moorhen, who glides through the water with surprising ease. May we, like she, refuse to be limited by others’ expectations!