Down at Capel's Mill

I arranged to get three new tyres fitted to our car tis morning as I know that they are getting worn and it needs to pass the annual MOT test tomorrow. We have a delightful family garage who have helped us out of difficult travel situations in the past so I like to give them my trade when I can.  Warwick Cars is situated on the Fromeside industrial estate which was built in the 1980s on land beside the Thames and Severn canal.  

I left the car while they did the fitting (incredibly reasonable price, by the way)and wandered across the road to adjacent FromeBanks, which is ow a nature reserve running for a quarter of a mile beside the River Frome. It had been poring with rain all morning but by the time I reached the river it had turned to a fine drizzle and actually stopped soon after.  I walked through the trees and clambered down a steep bank to the path beside the river with the hope of seeing the kingfisher I blipped near there last week. It was very humid so that my glasses kept misting up and I had to protect the camera and lens from the drips off the newly sprouted leaves on the trees.

As I walked very slowly I spotted two white-throated dippers, who are also nesting nearby, and was able to watch them diving under the fast flowing and very brown river water.  Then I disturbed them and so walked further upstream towards the kingfisher nest. I passed the branch on which it likes to sit ready to dive for prey but thought that it wouldn't be doing that with the water being so brown and murky. Then I saw it fly away from me about twenty yards away and knew my chance had gone.

So I wandered about with both my small Fujifilm camera as well as a long zoom lens on my Canon and took pictures of whatever caught my eye. I've blipped the top of the wall on the new extension of the canal beneath the railway viaduct at Capel's Mill. I also spotted a pied wagtail which has been added as an 'Extra photo' as well as a view downstream from the footbridge across the river where it falls over the ruins of the mill race. The kingfisher nests in the bank seen on the left of the picture. All these pictures were taken within thirty yards of each other and within three hundred yards of the garage, which I then walked back to and drove home on extra rubber.