Brandon Marsh, the headquarters of the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, is an old
quarry site which is now a 200 hectare nature reserve. An excellent place to try
out a new zoom camera. If you can get there. It's a mile and a half's walk down
a country lane before you arrive at the reserve, which with the same journey
back, makes it tiring. It's not a place therefore I visit very often. In fact I've only been once before.
quarry site which is now a 200 hectare nature reserve. An excellent place to try
out a new zoom camera. If you can get there. It's a mile and a half's walk down
a country lane before you arrive at the reserve, which with the same journey
back, makes it tiring. It's not a place therefore I visit very often. In fact I've only been once before.
The day was just right. Not too hot for walking but given the summer we are having, dry. A cup of tea is a wonderful excuse to sit down for a bit but once at the reserve time can be precious. A pleasant half-hour watching gulls over the lake led to an equally pleasant wander around the rest of the reserve. There wasn't much to see until I stepped off the main (dry) path to walk part-way round one of the smaller ponds. The path was muddy but with the trees and reeds and flashes of sunshine it was a peaceful walk. The reed caught my eye. I guessed it would make an interesting picture. What I didn't see until I looked at the photograph on the computer was the lovely blue demoiselle (dragonfly) resting briefly in the sunshine on the leaf close by.
A startled and not very pleased looking Golden Eye duck. She (or may have been a young bird) kept close to the bank until eventually she flew off further down the lake. Ornithologists are not very original when it comes to naming birds. I loved Chris Packham's explanation on Springwatch when he was explaining Black Bird. It was the only black feathered bird, all the other black coloured birds were not 'birds'! There's no real answer to that.