Egyptian Eye

At the start of a busy weekend (Project "Go Live", Choir concert), I escaped work early and headed to Fleet Pond with a new 70-300mm lens.

The filter thread on my old lens was badly damaged by being crushed somehow. The lens itself was fine, but at 250mm max a little short, so I took the opportunity to replace it. It's not really an upgrade: in this range lenses are either relatively cheap(<£400) or hideously expensive (>£1000) new - and heavy! This one in in the former bracket, and seemed to give the best balance between cost, quality and weight.

Anyway, it was great walking through the cool woods to a sandy beach on the pond side. On display were a family of mallards, with well grown chicks - teenagers really - gulls, a lone swan (I do hope its mate was around somewhere), coot, crow and a couple of Egyptian geese.

The one paddling at the water's edge was preening himself, and definitely giving me "the eye"