A Black Tern day ...

Today Pete and I visited Amwell as reports stated a Black Tern had been seen.. and voila...!! there it was.  Needless to day ( and this is getting boring....) it was a dreadful day for any type of reasonable light.

So first to Amwell:

Canada Geese Goslings... there were 2 families of them..

and (in the wildest of imaginations) this is purely a record shot of the Black Tern... furthest on the right... and a lifer for me!!

Bit of a barney with the Greylag Geese.

A Redshank fed not that far away..

And from there I headed off to Hatfield Forest..

This pair of Great crested Grebes have 3 eggs...I think they must have constructed their nest after the rise in water level!!

A common tern..

And a Greylag Goose was keeping her very young brook warm..

After Hatfield (it was still early in the morning) I headed off for Anglesey Gardens... I like it there.. it has a feeling of peace whatever the weather..

The sun did come out very briefly which helped to raise the temperatures a bit...

At least it didn't rain!!

Who stole Spring and replaced it with Winter... the poor birds

It's concert weekend... more of that in a day or so.

I headed north in the vain hope that the grey skies would become blue and the wet stuff would cease.. however... not much hope of that except the rain did hold off!!

I did some shopping and then headed off for Rye Meads.. the light was dreadful!!  I've never seen the reserve so water logged.  A few days ago the Buffalo had 'escaped' and the reserve, as a result, had to close.  But they were back in the field today... albeit it looked more like a lake.

Erm... swimming buffalo..

And the group of Konik horses looked really fed up with water up to their knees..

 The horse on the extreme right obviously needs some support!!

From the Draper Hide, the warring Little Grebes... at least as a pair they were content wit each other.

And Mr. and Mrs. Tufty obviously felt they should be treated better..and watched haughtily as I took their picture.

Well this Mallard summed it up.... wet and grey so lets have a kip!!

The Kingfisher bank was busy with the pair who are nesting... chicks are now about 2 weeks old.  The male sat perched up with a huge fish but despite taking several pics even record shots were beyond my skills today.

BUT.... whilst attempting to focus on the 'hole' for the parent bird to leave... it did!! Far to fast but just managed to grab it as it left (bottom right of the picture as you will probably have missed it ! )

OK.. just the one.....more to illustrate I'd seen it than anything else!

Nice to get a bit of fresh air and heardReed and Sedge Warblers; Cittis, Blackcaps, Common Whitethroat, saw dozens of swifts and some swallows..  And that in itself was really rewarding :D

And tomorrow.... watch this space..