Coate Water Park (Tuesday 23rd August 2022)

For once I had a clear day so I used it to head back to Coate Water Park in Swindon, my fourth visit of the year. This time I used a different route to get to Wroughton, via Avebury, using main roads instead of the narrow back roads through Clyffe Pypard, and found it similar in length and time but an easier drive.

I ambled around the lake in anti-clockwise fashion and got many bird and wildlife shots that I liked, but for Blip I wanted something that was unique to this visit, so settled on either the A Tune A Day soprano saxophonist I came across unexpectedly (in Extras) or the lady feeding the pigeons who got them all over her arm. A small boy who was with her had one land on his head.

It was raining when I arrived but it soon cleared up and by the time I got back to the car an hour and a half later it had become very warm.

I was pleased to see the black swan again, having missed her on my last two visits. She had surprised local birdwatchers by laying a brood of eggs in 2021 as these must have been fathered by a mute swan. Cygnets of both black swans and mute swans look the same when young, but these grew up to look like mute swans and I wondered if some of the swans she was with may have included her offspring (in Extras).

I saw two herons, one was on the lake to the south of the footbridge and one on a pontoon in front of the crazy golf course, with some gulls and swans, and got several shots of both.

On the way home I drove down Chaddington Lane and parked by the Wilts and Berks at Studley Grange. The two pairs of swans were on either side of the road bridge and were happy to model for me. I took some shots of them on a vintage Tokina 19-35mm lens with my full-frame K1. I have had this lens since the eighties, possibly longer. I must remember that for best results I should stop down by one or two stops from what the camera calculates.


L.
Wednesday 24.8.2022 (1717 hr)

Blip #3722 (#3472 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #000
Blips/Extras In 2022 #159/265 + #066/100 Extras
Day #4535 (1070 gaps from 26.3.2010)
LOTD #2864 (#2704 + 160 in archived blips)

Taken with Pentax K-50 (Yellow) and Pentax HD P-DA 55-300 mm F4-5.8 ED WR lens

Swindon series
Birds series

Coate Water Park, 23 August 2022 (Flickr album)(Work in progress)

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Blood Sisters - Ring My Bell (1979)
Ring My Bell was written by Frederick Knight for Stacy Lattisaw (11) as a song about kids talking on the telephone, which is not what I thought it was about. Anita Ward ended up being the first person to record it instead in 1979, and it became her only big hit. The Blood Sisters, three London girls, recorded this dub-heavy lovers rock reggae version the same year for Sound City, produced by Lee Laing and Neville King.
I stopped for a picnic lunch near Bushton on the way home and heard Craig Charles play this out on 6 Music. It sounded great, and I had never heard it before.

One year ago:
Town Gardens