Greylag

We had only planned to stay with Daniel for one night, returning home after last night’s performance in The Lowry. However, car issues looked as if they might prevent him picking Solveig and Lili up from the airport, so we offered to stay another night. As it turns out, the car is ready, so we drop him off at the garage and he goes on to Manchester airport leaving us to return home via Burton Mere RSPB. 

It’s our first visit of the year and the weather’s perfect for it. The current main attraction seems to be the spoonbill - and I do actually manage to photograph it flying off to the nest with twigs in its beak. Mind you, it’s a dreadful image, so I won’t be including it here! It’s not helped by the fact that I don’t have my 600mm lens with me - and the 200mm really isn’t up to the job of distant shots. We enjoy watching the avocets (or Exocets as G insists on calling them), though we don’t see any of the chicks.  

As usual, we enjoy walking around the ponds or lakes. Today, rather noisy Canada geese seem to dominate, but we come across a few Greylags which I much prefer. And it’s one of these that is my main today, spied through leafy branches, wings grandly held aloft. As extras, there’s an avocet across the reed bed and an in flight egret.