--- title: The park pond through the year: ducks, coots, swans, dragonflies and ice — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The park pond through the year: ducks, coots, swans, dragonflies and ice», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A park pond is a small world that changes with the seasons, and if you visit it every month you m --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / The park pond through the year: ducks,… # The park pond through the year: ducks, coots, swans, dragonflies and ice Lesson 337 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 14 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/0/) — A park pond is a small world that changes with the seasons, and if you visit it every month you meet the same neighbours doing different things. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/1/) — In spring a mallard mother marches a wobbly line of ducklings across the path while a swan hisses at anyone near its nest. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/2/) — In summer a dragonfly zooms past, snatching flies with its legs held like a basket, and pond skaters run about on top of the water as if it were a trampoline. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/3/) — In winter the ducks stand on the ice on bare feet and do not freeze, and two black birds argue at the edge: a coot with a white beak and forehead, and a moorhen with a red and yellow beak. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/4/) — Cartoon ducks gobble whole loaves of bread and cartoon swans break people's arms. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/5/) — Real ducks are better off with peas and oats, and a swan just wants you to give it space. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/6/) — A coot is a black water bird with a white beak and a white forehead patch, and a moorhen is a black bird with a red and yellow beak; coots dive more and moorhens walk more on the banks. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/8/) — A coot has three toes forward and one back, each with flat flaps called lobes that spread when swimming and fold when walking; ducks have webbed feet, and moorhens have long toes with no flaps for walking on floating plants. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/9/) — Ducklings follow the first moving thing they see after hatching, usually their mother, and can swim and feed within a day; male mallards have green heads, and females are brown to hide on the nest. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/10/) — Bread fills ducks up without much goodness, and leftover bread makes the water dirty and attracts rats; peas, oats, sweetcorn and duck food are better, in small amounts. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/14/) — A dragonfly has four wings that can each move on their own, so it can hover, fly backwards and turn sharply; dragonfly-like insects have been around for over 300 million years. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/16/) — Ducks' feet stay just above freezing on ice because warm blood flowing in heats the cold blood coming back. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/17/) — People should never walk on pond ice, because it can break suddenly; if a dog goes onto the ice, nobody should follow it, but call for help. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/337-the-park-pond-through-the-year-ducks-coots-swans-dragonflies-and-ice/18/) — In summer ducks moult all their flight feathers at once and cannot fly for a few weeks, drakes turn brown like females to hide, and they grow bright new feathers by autumn. - ← previous: [The garden in winter: bare trees, tracks in the snow and who sleeps where](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/336-the-garden-in-winter-bare-trees-tracks-in-the-snow-and-who-sleeps-where/) - next →: [The vegetable patch: peas, potatoes, tomatoes and slugs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/338-the-vegetable-patch-peas-potatoes-tomatoes-and-slugs/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)