Anderton Boat Lift

Another beautiful day outside - we've been so lucky this weekend!

After an early(and disappointing) start to the day watching the Chinese Grand Prix, we headed out to Marbury Country Park. After my successful (solo) visit a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to show my husband what he had missed.
My aim this year when out is to try and find, identify and photograph at least one new bird each time, even if it's a poor shot. So far it has been quite easy as we have been to many different places and habitats and I'm still learning all of their names.

Today's new birds were the grey wagtail, swallow and the sparrow-hawk(although I didn't get a shot of this). The other two, I did capture but the images were not too good...
We also saw a pair of Garganey (not one I'd heard of before) ducks at Haydn's Pool, but they were well hidden amongst the reeds and not really possible to photograph. Apparently they are not so common and summer visitors.

There were also quite a few wildflowers - cowslip, forget-me-not, celandines, marsh marigolds, wood anemones(lots), flowering currant and lots of bluebells. And I also managed to capture a rather tatty peacock butterfly - so all in all a successful day.

Along the way, we also visited the Anderton Boat Lift, which is my blip for today. This was built in 1875 to transport the commercial boats the 50ft drop between the Trent and Mersey Canal and the River Weaver. It fell into disrepair in the 20th century due to the decline in traffic, but has now been restored to its former glory in 2002 and is mainly used today as a tourist attraction and to transport pleasure craft.