ducks in the moat

Yesterday I wrote that I hoped to put up some pictures of townscapes we've seen outside Berlin. I'm sorry but they will have to wait until I return to New York. We're both too busy just being here to do much posting.

I can easily show these two ducks however. They were lording it over the quiet moat surrounding the beautiful early rococo Schloss Rheinsberg, Frederick the Great's home before he succeeded his father as king.

I never approach a moat without thinking of T.H. White and the visit of Merlyn and the Wart to the moat of the Castle of the Forest Sauvage. Unfortunately I didn't see a perch yesterday.

CORRECTION: Our friend Kate, writing from Antwerp, tells me that they are probably Coots, or Waterhoentjes, which means they actually aren't ducks at all.