Mute Swan (Cygnus olor).

I was walking along a river last week and saw this Bird bathing in the middle of a bend in the river, splashing around to gets itself as wet as possible, thrusting its head and neck under the water, really was nice to watch.

After soaking itself it went to the edge of the river to dry itself off, flapping its wings to do so, it then preened itself, purest white feathers were its reward, that is apart from the neck which it obviously can't reach.

For myself it was 40 minutes of joy to watch, boring for some people i guess, hearing the sound of the wings through the air was amazing, you can tell by the sound just how powerful they are.

You can see the Splashing here at Swan Bathing 1 and Swan Bathing 2 .