Fire on the Ice

My leg has been rather sore today, so I thought that with my sister and her fiance now gone back to London, I would take advantage of the time to try and do another purge of my kitchen - partially successful - and have a nice long walk on a bright but punishingly cold day - temperatures of -5 at dawn.

I did the tour of the two lakes, albeit at a much slower pace than usual, expecting that the freezing weather might have brought some more interesting ducks onto the water, but alas no goosander, pochard or shoveller, although a cormorant was taking advtange of the kerfuffle caused by a large flock of black headed gulls to fish.

Nature on the water was thus not too interesting, but the sun shining off the ice that had formed on the surface was stunning.

There were lots of birds out in the trees along the cycle path, a bullfinch yesterday but today we had a lot of blue and great tits and also a fair few chaffinch.

The golden low sun has been beautiful this last couple of days, gilding the town in precious metals.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 29.12.16

Reflections on a Run

As I said, it was a superb day yesterday that even with cold temperatures, it was hard to stay indoors.

My final activity of the day was a gentle 7 km run taking in the two lakes, and by heaven they both looked beautiful. The air was so peaceful and the waters so still  that they sky was able to paint itself upon the water. I ran around, not worried about pace, taking plenty of photo-stops to record the colours.

The birds on view were the usual ones, just the geese and ducks, gulls still upon the smooth surface, reduced to dots by the salmon gold sky. The town was looking its best. The sun said goodbye to the day while I ran, replaced by an easy twilight.

A skein of canada geese flew overhead. The roost called them home as I arrived back at my flat. A robin flitted on the sycamore, and the sparrow's chatter was silenced.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.01.16

The cemetery in a lowering sun

The new sports centre

The moon under water

The Blue Lake looking south

A grebe in the clouds

A golden view

A coot before the reeds

Goosetropolis

Still got sticky old warm weather although that largely unfamiliar celestial yellow thing has had a couple of days off, and hopefully will not clock back in until I'm next off work.

Today was tea in the park in the morning, while watching the swallows perform aerobatics far in excess of The Red Arrows. It's my favourite time at Rumbles cafe, when these beautiful birds fly in over the cafe roof and then drop to ground level - almost literally, they are barely an inch off the grass - and sweep up insects, by now starting to fuel for their migration.

I watched one pull 360s in the air, turning in a circle barely a metre across while flying at full pelt over the flower beds, its tail fanning out to act as a brake, it's white belly presented to me for a split second.

And then it was gone, dipping its feathery shoulders, and diving down low with those characteristic powerfull "pulled back" sweeps of its wings so very different from the jittery flutters of a swift.

No swallows seen in the afternoon, as I ran around the two lakes, where a charming elderly couple with a bag of brown bread and some grain, had attracted every canada goose in the county. It was a lovely vignette, not so lovely underfoot however...

I had to run rather gingerly!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 26.06.15