It was my birthday yesterday! I went with my parents to the London Wetland Centre, a little nature reserve where you can see a thrilling variety of waterfowl.

I spotted over thirty different species of bird! Some were ones I often see around London; some were rarer sights. Many of them were entirely new to me!

The birds I remember (and could establish the names of; I have no idea what some of the cool birds I saw were called), starting with the familiar and progressing to 'wait, what's that??': pigeon, mallard, coot, moorhen, crow, seagull, tufted duck, rose-ringed parakeet, heron, stork, some sort of huge grey crane with a red patch on its head (probably a common crane), goldeneye, bufflehead, smew, hooded merganser, red-breasted goose, great crested grebe, Cape teal, Cape Barren goose (this was so huge!), white-faced whistling duck, fulvous whistling duck, white-headed duck. The name 'white-headed duck' was a surprise to us; we found its blue bill a lot more distinctive!

My favourite sightings:

- We saw a family of moorhens: two parents, three chicks. The chicks were little balls of black fluff with comically tiny stubs of wings. They must have barely hatched; there were still unhatched eggs in the nest!

- I spotted a large cloud of seagulls from a hide, wheeling around. I usually see gulls moving separately, even when they're flying in large numbers; it was interesting to see them all moving together, like starlings. I was too far from them to determine the type of gull, but they were great to watch!

- The great crested grebe was so large and serene, just floating there in the water. Very handsome bird!

- The white-faced whistling duck was perhaps my favourite new bird discovery. According to the information board, they form very strong bonds and call out to their mate if they're separated. And, indeed, we saw two pairs of white-faced whistling ducks, each travelling around as a duo, rather than lone birds. One of the pairs sat facing each other in the grass, their necks forming a little heart shape as they nuzzled each other. 'Did you see them kissing?' my mum asked, deeply charmed.

- I saw an otter! An Asian small-clawed otter, specifically, swimming in the water and climbing on logs and squiggling around on the earth. It looked like it was having fun!


In the evening, I had a delicious Victoria sponge Rei had made for me, and I watched Weathering with You with my housemates. I've actually owned this film for a year and a half, but this is the first time I've seen it! For a long time I didn't have the nerve to watch Weathering with You, because I loved Shinkai's earlier film Your Name so much that I was worried I'd just resent it for not being Your Name.

I needn't have worried; I had a great time with Weathering with You! I don't love it as much as I love Your Name, of course, but I didn't expect to, and I still really enjoyed it in its own right. Stunning to look at, and it very much succeeded at getting me invested. It was a real rollercoaster of a film; it felt like the plot went zooming off in a new direction every few minutes. I was so startled when a gun came into play; it didn't feel like it was going to be a film with a gun in it!

At one point the protagonist Hodaka fires the gun, almost hitting someone with it, and I would be fascinated to see how events would have played out if he actually had shot that guy. It was so nearly a very different film!


necrophilia, who is incredible, gave me six months of Dreamwidth paid time for my birthday! Suddenly I'm swimming in icon space! I'm very excited about this.

This also, of course, means that I have the ability to make polls. Brace yourselves.