Raindrops keep falling...

For a while I thought today was going to be a better weather day. Then when I stopped in Sandside under a blue morning sky and looked north into the Lake District, it was covered in a thick blanket of low cloud that was moving eastwards towards Kendal. It was ever so tempting to divert on my way to work to try and catch the advancing cloud from the top of Scout Scar, but dutifully I carried on to the office.

My lunchtime walk was punctuated by showers, and it it was in one of these I couldn't resist yet another line-up of black-headed gulls on the railings along the River Kent in Kendal. Apart from the fact it shows them sitting out the shower, it provides an excuse for an identification lesson. The nearest is a first winter bird with a touch of brown in his wing feathers, and legs and bill that are not so red. The fifth from the left is also a first winter, the others are adults. Some of the birds on the river (though none of this crew) are already starting to develop their chocolatey head feathers of breeding plumage.

Thank you very much for all the stars and hearts for yesterday's essence of oystercatcher. I'm never quite sure how rather more impressionistic shots of birds will be received.