Mother and child

This last week Cumbria has been spared the pall of grey cloud that has blanketed Scotland and much of England. Today, though, the blanket settled over us like a nuclear winter. In the morning it was so dull that photography outdoors was almost pointless.

It did brighten a little at lunchtime and I went for a walk with Matt, Sue and Rowan down to the River Kent. This pen mute swan was on the river with her two maturing cygnets, and I waited for them to paddle upstream to where the beech leaves are clinging on to the twigs, with their bright colour reflecting in the water. I couldn't get all three swans in shot at one time.

Matt spotted a tiny little grebe fishing for minnows close in to the bank, the first to appear on the river since the breeding season. Though, I have been seeing one every day on the River Bela for the last couple of weeks. There were also a male and a female goldeneye close to the weir, again the first we have seen on the river since last winter. They have been on the estuary for a few weeks now, but it's always good to see them on the river where they are a little more approachable. As we walked the river bank there was the occasional splash as a salmon breached and flopped back in - why do they do that? And wouldn't it be a coup to blip one - though nigh on impossible as it is totally unpredictable when and where they will leap from the water.