Breakfast...

Pete was up at half past five this morning, to make an early start on a long day of fieldwork. I tried to get back to sleep but couldn't, so Rosie and I had an early morning walk along the river. What a joy it was!

It was pleasantly cool, the vegetation was soaked and sparkling from the recent rain and there were wisps of mist rising from the river. We've now edged into the next ecological season - recognised in Poland as the Golden Summer. Most birds have finished breeding, the local swifts have gone, many of the flowers are coming to an end, but the hedgerows are full of ripening berries.

So I was quite surprised to see at least two broods of newly hatched moorhen chicks, peeping plaintively among the bur-reed and sweet-grass. I watched this little family for some time, and got quite a few shots of the cute but ugly chicks - including one that initially seemed fascinated by its reflection and then did some stretching exercises.

But in the end I chose this intimate moment between mother and chick, glimpsed between the leaves of branched bur-reed. That snail is the perfect breakfast - plenty of protein and calcium for the growing youngster!