I hadn’t visited the lakes for a fortnight and so was looking forward to my visit on Friday. It turned out to be cold, not freezing but...

WHAT is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?— No time to stand beneath the boughs, And stare as long as sheep...

Anyone who has read some of my previous blogs will probably think I’ve become a bit of a twitcher. It’s not that I haven’t written about...

There are always things that I enjoy on my excursions to the lakes: a vista with a background of trees in a huge variety of greens to a...

This week’s visit to the Lake was a little unusual as I’m normally on my own. I’ve learnt that my slow pace as I gaze around and...

Yes, I know these two little birds aren’t magpies but bear with me… The original version of the Magpie nursery rhyme only ran to four...

“Hi, I haven’t seen you for a while” I say to one of the frequent bird watchers I’ve encountered on my visits to the lakes. “Well, I’m...

I recorded this for work for a short video we produced in support of Mental Health Week, which explains my rather gentle tone. Tilly...

Stocker’s Lake is a beautiful haven as these early morning pictures, I hope, demonstrate, and as such it is a calming influence after a...

I often write about, and take pictures of things that are unusual, things that stand out from the ordinary, but this week I want to...

Perhaps the two most famous major metamorphoses in nature are those by which a tadpole becomes a frog, and the transformation of...

Up until my last visit to Stocker’s Lake I had seen only a few egrets and taken some pretty average photos of them, but on this visit...

Walking around Stocker’s Lake early in the morning, I have often thought how quiet and calm it was. Rarely do you hear the noise of cars,...

Herons are tall, a bit gangly and remind me of old men, with their grey, black and white plumage and long thin legs. Yet I never seem to...

Claude Monet, Detail of The Water Lilies: Morning With Wllows, Musée de l'Orangerie Walking around the lake this morning I got to...

I set out for one of my weekly walks and, having seen them the previous week, I decided I would try and get one or two good pictures of...

Blue is one of the three primary colours. It is the colour of planet earth when seen from space. It is strongly associated in nature with...

One of my recent walks coincided with Father’s Day and, with the lake full of ducklings, goslings, cygnets, grebettes and cooties, it was...

This isn’t so much a blog as a visual essay. My walk a couple of week's ago included spotting two Muntjac deer, a little egret flying...

I've become a member of a friendly informal society which seems to have its own code of communication. Wandering around the lakes I’ll...