The first to come my way were a pair of swooping Lapwings, and as I watched I began to get some idea of what was happening, as it seemed as if it was often the female who landed on the spit just beyond the hide and who was then dive-bombed by the male, but this was only supposition my part as I am not a clued-up bird watcher.
I decided I would try to capture what I took to be their mating ritual as the female would display on the ground, than as the male swooped she would squat lower as if in submission, and then they would fly off together for a while before she would land again and seem to repeat the action. I may have misinterpreted it all as the pair flew again together for a while before they went their separate ways and the female flew to an islet and started drinking casually as if she were no longer interested.
The greylag geese which interrupted these goings on announced their departure in typically raucous hooting and I managed to get a reasonable grouping of three in flight, as well as an earlier singleton landing on the water. In the milky sunshine, another pair made interesting reflections on the water as flew by.
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