𝐀 𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐝
At Rouge Cloître there is a lot of water. There is a pond there, at the junction of the Chemin des Etangs and Percée that is easy to miss, walk past.
In the middle of the pond there is a coot’s nest, and it is from the white dab on its forehead that we get the expression in English of ‘as bald as a coot’ although then it could mean ‘white-fronted’ as in a ‘bald-faced horse’, something more than a simple blaze.
𝐹𝑢𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎 𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑎 (Foulque macroule, Meerkoet) isn’t a duck, it belongs to the Rail family of waterfowl. If you linger here, you may witness the parents swopping roles, one settling low on the nest while the other slips away across the water, looking for sustenance.