Long horn cattle in the rainstorm

I gave myself a treat today and went to Slimbridge Wildlife and Wetlands centre this afternoon.

I went straight to the Zeiss hide overlooking the pastures leading away to the banks of the river Severn and its sand flats. The hide is usually a fine place to view from in all weathers, but the rain even penetrated there.  I watched the slowly approaching heavy rainstorm come across the river from the Forest of Dean, with walls of water in the distance hiding the hills beyond.  A loud clap of thunder after a flash of lightning heralded the deluge.

The cattle were spooked and ran away together from the storm, but had nowhere else to go once they reached the edge of the lake in front of me.  I loved this weird light that resulted and even though it was very dark I snapped a few pictures.  The rain drops here look as big as snowflakes, creating an image as if painted by a Pointillist.

Once the rain stopped I went to the tropical house where I spent a long time delighted with the colourful birds in the wet 'rain forest' setting. I would certainly have blipped one of these birds, and I may yet put them into Flickr, something I haven't done for many months.