Christmas geese - not to be eaten!

For us, Christmas Day is a fairly quiet affair. Since my Mum died three years ago, we have decided to have friends and relatives over on Boxing Day, and keep Christmas Day just for the five of us. With three young men in the house, this tends to mean a late start!

After brunch of banana pancakes with bacon, the three of us who were fit enough (Pete, Chris and I) went for a walk around Ferry Meadows. The sun was shining, the snow had scarcely melted, and nearly all the water was frozen (even the river) making the place look more like the Arctic tundra than eastern England.

We had taken some spare bread for the birds, which was vigorously fought over by swans, mallards, coots and seagulls. I managed to get some excellent captures of seagulls against a brilliant blue sky - mostly through taking an awful lot of images. as well as some close-ups of pied wagtail and moorhen, all of which will appear on my blog in due course.

After a few minutes we heard the honking calls of a large flock of geese, which had been grazing by the river. Suddenly a huge flock took to the air. We saw them wheel around the end of the lake and fly low towards us. For a few seconds the air was full of whirring wings - an amazing and thrilling sound- before they landed on the small amount of remaining open water and adjacent ice. The image I've chosen isn't necessarily the most striking that I took today, but it captures that very special moment. It is much better viewed in large.

Returning home proved to be quite traumatic! I had rather foolishly parked towards the bottom of a hill. I made a good start up the hill and was feeling confident. However whe I was about half way up, another car came down, and forced me to slow up, which meant I lost momentum. I couldn't regain speed, and had no option but to reverse back down the hill to try again. In the end Pete and Chris had to push the car up the hill, but it was still hair-raising, as there was no traction and it was sliding all over the place. We eventually made it home to a very welcome cup of tea and panettone!

Please view large.