Young heron

Well - it's been quite a day. I took the dogs down to the river for a frosty morning walk. I think we must have missed the early dog walkers, because we had the place totally to ourselves except for the birds.

Quite early on I caught sight of a kingfisher, a flash of azure and orange. Then, a young heron was perched on the red bridge, together with the usual set of black-headed gulls.It flew off as we approached and I managed to get one shot, before it disappeared down the river. Considering this was taken using the Lumix, I was quite pleased, though its a bit softer that I would have liked.

Further down the river there were the usual moorhens and coots, as well as a single female tufted duck. I also briefly saw a grey wagtail along the rowing lake. The young heron was around for much of our walk, leap-frogging us until it found a nice safe spot on the far side of a backwater to go fishing.

In the early afternoon we went off to see the starling roost at Fen Drayton Pit. By this time (as predicted yesterday) the sunshine had gone and there was a solid layer of grey cloud. However, as I had read that the numbers at the roost were dropping, we felt we couldn't risk putting it off any longer.

Despite the grey weather and biting cold it was a magical experience: the shapes the murmuring starlings made were amazing, and the sound of the wings and the chattering of the starlings in the roost were something I'll remember for a long time. We were also lucky enough to see two sparrowhawks hunting, causing the flock to break up, and diving to the ground with their prey. Photographs will eventually appear on my blog.