What waterfowl get up to at night, when they think no-one's looking

Thursday's Psychogeography walk started with drinks at Sunnyside Pavilion, where you can watch beach volleyball, dragon boats, and distant yachts and tall ships all at the same time, while lounging under a patio umbrella with a gin and tonic. When it got dark, we wandered west along the boardwalk.

All along the shoreline, huge flocks of Canada geese gathered at the water's edge. I suppose they fall asleep there later in the evening, but at around 10:00, it was completely dark and they were still awake. They were an eerie sight, quiet but alert, paddling around in the black water.

We detoured to inspect a rocky outcropping (above), then kept going to Humber Bay Park. It's on a peninsula, connected to the shore by a series of footbridges, which at night are lit up with rows of little lights. The bridges cross and border some ponds, which look like they are being used for some experimental purpose; they have these functional-looking rafts floating in them, which as you can see are popular with ducks:

The bridges and ponds and rafts gave Alison and I a strong sense of having wandered into an episode of The X-Files: Maybe the ducks are part of a secret government project! Like the bees! And the corn! And the black oil! However, no unmarked helicopters or men in black interrupted our walk, so presumably we didn't see anything we weren't supposed to.