Is that a lily pad or a missing 5 ft emu?

MaNY animals use camouflage to hide in plain sight. This is my excuse for once misplacing an emu. emus love water and are good swimmers, aquatic habits I was unaware of when I was a trainee zookeeper. a male emu was housed in an enclosure and had to be caught every day to receive an injection, which it hated. When grappling with stroppy large birds in an attempt to give them an injection, it’s not unknown for a keeper to be injected by mistake. The emu would sprint around the enclosure as soon as he spotted me. one morning, the emu was nowhere to be seen. I ran to the birdhouse in a panic and told the head keeper: ‘The emu has gone!’ ‘You’ve lost an emu?’ ‘I’ve just misplaced him.’ ‘Misplaced him? He’s not a set of car keys. He’s a 5 ft flightless bird with size ten feet.’ ‘all I know is he’s temporarily not in the enclosure, at this moment in time.’ ‘oh really? Perhaps he’s gone to the shop for a newspaper.’ The head keeper marched me out of the birdhouse, saying: ‘I’ll show you where he is.’ In the enclosure, he confronted me. ‘Still don’t know where he is?’ I shook my head. Staring sternly, the head keeper shot out an arm, pointing to the pond. all I could see was a large frog sitting on a lily pad. Then the frog started to rise. It was sitting on a curly, blackfeathered head. a pair of eyes was just breaking through the surface of the water. The emu had managed to submerge and remain hidden in a 2 ft deep pond. aware he was under scrutiny, he stood up, water pouring from him like a giant sponge, before striding ashore and sheepishly volunteering for his injection.