Priory Park Bedford

Andy Fox, who has now gained his LRPS for his photographic work, contacted me to arrange a visit to Priory Park, Bedford, which turns out to be close to Cardington, the last RAF Station at which  my father had been stationed, and ironically the first I went to when four years later I joined the RAF. The entire area close by has been transformed almost beyond recognition over the last few years, but the park is a vast haven of lakes, woodland and wildlife.

We parked up and Andy showed me on a plan where he suggested we walk to make a round trip of it. The first thing that you see is a carved wooden totem pole, and Andy said there had been another carving, but local youths had set fire to that, resulting in permanent night closure of the park. That desecration saddened me that anyone could be so wantonly destructive.

We headed for the the Labyrinth and its carvings, before moving to the river.  (See if you can spot the owl, the horse and the shapely lady – they are not carvings!) One of the first things that I saw were large dragonflies, but they conclusively evaded being photographed, but one particular brown one gave us both quite a few laughs, flying often tantalisingly close and always at high speed. Andy was closer to getting a shot than me!

Soon one species of damselfly, I believe to be a banded demoiselle soon turned out to be a very frequent habitué of the reeds and nettles at the river’s edge.

It was whilst we were concentrating on these close to the ford, that we heard a loud scream of laughter as one girl managed to slip and land on her backside before reaching the water whilst her children looked on from our side. After much further laughter the father made the attempt to cross and had no sooner got to the water than he followed suit! He was not quite so lucky, as he got a soaking and filled his trainers with water, which he had carefully removed beforehand! He was not very happy at the thought of sitting in his car in sopping clothes, so we suggested he might walk for longer!

Although we saw a few more dragonflies, and numerous damselflies, there were very few butterflies to be seen. We did watch a persistent tern diving for fish, and a grebe with a single youngster, before our return to the car. We were very lucky weatherwise, as no sooner had we arrived back at Andy’s, the rain came down in a sharp shower! Altogether a very enjoyable afternoon.