Going off the rails

“They were curious little birds, determined not to leave their safe haven in the shallows”

“The expression isn’t ‘as bald as a moorhen’ is it? It’s ‘as bald as a coot’.” Ben and I were sitting in a duck flighting hide, watching a wader in the shallows dipping below the surface now and again. Having never really thought about it much, I had asked what the difference is between the two, and back had chirped Ben’s quick reply. The most telling difference is the colour of the stripe down the front of their heads; the coot’s being bright white and the moorhen’s a vivid red.

“I went on a driven moorhen day once on the Norfolk Broads,” Ben expanded. “There were hundreds of them, though in truth it was a little underwhelming. We were served moorhen stew