A cob making a short hop move in a hurry. It never actually took off completely. Instead, it went from sitting in the water towards the middle of West Park lake, to sitting in the water nearer the shore, some twenty or thirty yards away. Half way through take-off it switched to decelerating for landing.
There was no obvious reason for the move, or for why it couldn’t just have swum across. It wasn’t doing anything in particular beforehand, and it wasn’t doing anything in particular once it landed. No swans around at either end, and no geese, ducks or coots in its immediate vicinity. No people who it might hope were going to feed the birds, either.