Goosanders

 We encountered this female goosander and her nine ducklings, not long out of the nest, when we were crossing the footbridge over the river Wear at St. John's Chapel in Weardale recently. We caught her  by surprise, tapped between a low waterfall that her ducklings couldn't navigate and us on the bridge. 

Outside of the breeding season she would have taken flight in an instant, but she had no option but to stick with her flightless ducklings, swimming in agitated circles, with her ducklings clambering on her back. We moved on quickly, leaving her and her family to white-water raft down river and away to safety. 

This was a single-parent family: drake goosanders undertake a moult-migration to Norway while the duck is still incubating her eggs; he won't be back until late autumn.

I wrote about this encounter in the Guardian Country Diary this week.