I love my local park which is in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, especially when I need to find a safer space to go out and practice social distancing. You can do a lot of things there, like for a picnic or exercise.
But the main attraction is of course the artificial lake:
It´s a home to dozen of dozens of birds making them perfect subjects for my photography. You got Swans
To funky looking ducks
This one is cool I got three of them on a cool pose.
Then you get the geese, who are cute but terrifying at the same time. They always honking around when people bring them food.
Besides being a home for domestic fowl this place also acts as a nature sanctuary for wild birds.
This photo at the top is a bit unfocused but you can clearly see this is a Gallinula chloropus or Water Hen. A migratory species. They have this beautiful black color with a red beak and feet.
We´ve also got the Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) you can´t always see it in the park. But they live in Portugal the entire year, and are easy to identify due to their characteristic long neck and grey plumage.
Then I found the park´s tree full of these. I think they might be Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) I could be wrong. They were given their name due to spending a lot of their time next to grazing animals, often feeding on ticks and flies attracted by them. They liked living close to bodies of water and make their nests on trees or shrubs.
I wish I could come here more often, because there is always something interesting to find. This entire park used to be an abandoned barren field until the city decided to convert it to a park. By creating a lake they basically create a safe place that is perfect for wild animals. I even found crayfish and tadpoles, I think. I once read about animal conservation method about creating small bodies of water like ponds to help increase the aquatic animal population, These places serve as a place for nidification, reproduction and food source.
So, it´s interesting to see how human activity is capable of helping nature in certain ways and not just destroy it.
These were all taken with a 500 Canon with a Zoom Lens
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Very beautiful birds