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Spring Day Out


Yesterday I took advantage of an overcast morning to visit the College Lake reserve near Tring. The advantage of the cloud cover is the lack of reflected sunlight on the water so you can actually see the birds rather than just silhouettes. There were good displays of primroses around the edges of the paths but the most spectacular feature was the acrobatic display flights by the lapwings. There are quite a few pairs nesting on the islands so there were usually several birds in the air at the same time. There was the usual collection of waterfowl with shoveller, gadwall, tufties, mallard, coot, mute swans and both Candada and greylag geese. Remarkably well camoflaged on the shingle were some redshank, I could hear them but it was only when one took flight that I could find them and even then once I took my bins off the spot I couldn't be sure of finding them again.

At home the badgers are still visiting but catching them on camera is still not as exciting as seeing one in the flesh which I did while driving home past Bovingdon Brickworks recently. In the garden the camera caught a fox for the first time. The thing that I found suprising was the brightness of the eyes in the infra red light, they were far brighter than the cats or badgers almost like small searchlights.
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