Flights of fancy…

The weather today is not as sunny but still, mercifully, dry.  After a fairly relaxed breakfast (one of Peter’s amazing cooked feasts) we headed off for Welney – the home of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust on the Ouse Washes.

As we crossed the bridge we couldn’t help noticing the cows!

The bull looked content:

And on the bridge itself, a little Wagtail chirped happily.

We decided to stay in the main observatory as there were plenty of birds, albeit mostly swans (both Whooper and Mute) a multitude of Mallards and the odd Pochard and Shoveler.  It’s a good place to see flying swans as they continually come swooping over  from other areas of wetland.  Just a few examples:

Adult & Juvenile Whooper

Nearly!

The skies were full, not only of Swans, but also great murmurations of Lapwings (see top picture) and also Greylag Geese:

When the sun came out the male Mallards in particular gleamed brightly:

These Whooper Swans had a lengthy conversation…

…while a solitary white duck enjoyed a bath:

One of the Pochards:

A Kestrel made many appearances, hovering over the islands…

…and at 3.30pm one of the wardens came out with a wheelbarrow with the first Swan feed of the season.  She gave a long gentle whistle and, like magic, the Swans swam in in flotillas and the Mallards, who had been sleeping on their island. suddenly woke up.

When we got back to the car park we both noticed that one of Bessie’s new tyres looked a little flat and, while I looked on the net for a local tyre place, Peter used the foot pump to get a bit of air into the tyre. I found somewhere about 8 miles away at Outwell and, as Peter suspected, it was a leaky valve which was soon replaced. Phew!

So, another interesting day and we are feeling surprisingly tired. Lots of snoozing – hence the lateness of this post!  Rain is expected tomorrow so it may be a lazy day ahead…