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 chilly.
It was damp even when it wasn’t raining, which it did now and then, making me hide under trees and pull my hood up over my head.
It was very grey and overcast, and the water so often blue when it reflects the spring and summer skies, was dull and grey too
Many of the leaves on the trees were turning a dirty brown, dying and dropping off the branches.
There were probably fewer varieties of birds than I often see.
Yet it was lovely to be back. It was as ever beautiful, and great to be out without anything really to think or worry about.
It was quiet or as quiet as it gets, in terms of background noise. The Canada Geese honked loudly and repetitively, especially just before they took off to fly to another lake. There were the shrill cries of gulls and in the distance, there was the occasional buzz of a chainsaw. It felt ‘real’, natural and was both calm and calming.
It was also quiet in terms of a lack of people. I saw less people on my normal circuit than I have on any other visit. I doubt I saw more than 10 people before I got back to the “Cafe in the park”. My walk was peaceful, relaxing and there were no dogs to scare away the birds that there were.
There may not have been as many different varieties of birds but there were still the geese and gulls I’ve mentioned, but also coots, moorhens, mallards, rook, mute swans, magpies, pigeons, sparrows, grebe, some pochards and a few shovelers.
This week’s star of the never-ending waterside story was however a tufted duck. I don’t think I’ve seen a more expressive bird outside of a cartoon. The look on their faces were as they say priceless and just made me smile.
There were numerous cormorants too, many in the places where I often see them, high in the tree near one of the larger hides, swimming past the Canada Geese by the first hide I come too. However, I came across a pair of them in the trees on one of the islands in Springwell Lake. I stood for a several minutes just watching them and then tried to capture some poses on my camera.
Walking back to Bury Lake and the coffee I had promised myself, I looked again at the trees and while the colours probably aren’t up to the standard of a New England forest and there are dying leaves, many were still the beautiful autumnal shades of yellow, orange and amber.
It was good to back, to take my time just strolling, not really expecting to see much but enjoying what I did.
Comments