There are certain things that I almost take for granted on my visits to the Lake. I expect a Magpie’s crackling chuckling call to be the first bird I’ll hear, there will be lots of Coots, Mallards, Black-headed Gulls and Canada Geese.
There will be birds that I would love to photograph but will be too far away for even my longest lens. There will be photos I take of birds, plants and insects that should be easily within reach, but I will still manage only to take shots that are slightly out of focus.
Then there are the unexpected pleasures, those unforeseen events and occurrences to add even more to the experience
And on my last two visits there have so many of these that I’ve almost come to expect the unexpected.
For example, sometimes when despite lots of failures I still insist on trying to take a picture of some birds way out on the lake. A fortnight ago these were of an adult grebe and an adolescent one. I was bit surprised that the adolescent one hadn’t gone its own way…
…but surprised and delighted when I saw the results and that I had captured the parent feeding a fish to its young.
In a similar vein was a shot of a robin at the top of a tree near Stocker’s farm. I had taken two shots; one was fine but perhaps a bit ordinary
The second however captured the little red breast in full voice, a picture that helps you see why this little bird can make so much music. Interestingly, the robin is one of the few UK bird species that sing throughout the year and here is some proof of that.
And then they are other shots delivering unanticipated results; there you are trying your best to take a picture and get the angle and the lighting right, but when you see the final photo, you get the unexpected bonus of a wonderful expression or posture
And when it comes to ‘light’ there are more regular simply glorious effects of dappled sunlight and falling shadows
Other unexpected events are always interesting too.
Now the majority of cormorants I see are solitary figures, but those of you who are regular readers will have seen shots of mine with two, three or four birds in them, what is known as a ‘gulp’ of cormorants. There was one occasion when there were seven all sitting in one tree – a tree I now think of as ‘Cormorant Tree’. It's visible from the right hand side of Tern Hide.
On my last visit the lake seemed to be home to more cormorants than ever, on tops of trees, hiding in the bushes next to Inns Lake,
but what really got my attention was seeing a whole group in the water. If you look closely at the images below you will see eight, nine or ten of them but just out of shot, in the water and on a post were another four
And talking of solitary birds, most of my regular sightings of grey herons are lone birds so to see and snap a pair in flight was a real treat (and weirdly co-incidental as the following day I was getting my first tattoo done – a pair of herons in flight!)
As I said most herons I see are by themselves often just in the water by the lake’s bank, in flight or up a tree…
So seeing one sitting on the rail of a bridge was maybe not unexpected but unusual – and the lighting gave it even more impact
Seeing birds I hadn’t expected to see has been another treat on my recent visits.
So while there were lots of black headed gulls as expected, seeing other gulls added to my interest and I think (only think) this is a juvenile herring gull or a juvenile common gull.
And while not particular late in the season still having the chance to see swallows is always enjoyable – trying to shoot them in flight is not so enjoyable though
But perhaps the biggest unexpected pleasure came at the heronry viewing point. The week before I had captured a passing wren
So on my most recent trip I stopped again and waited a few minutes…
A small bird duly appeared and I rattled off two shots before it took flight. It was just as I was taking the first of these shots that my conscious mind realised exactly what it was that I was shooting - a kingfisher
I have been trying to get a shot all year, having got some in 2021, but the closest I had previously got this year was watching an iridescent electric blue streak whizzing through the air
Looking at the two shots I had so rapidly fired off my heart fell as I looked at the first one – lovely colours but out of focus.
Then I looked at the second one…
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