Snow Gives Way to Sun

Saturday brought the first sun for some time, offering a respite for birds and animals to take to the open with a chance to feed. In my case it gave me a short opportunity to get out and capture some of the scenes in good light just before it was all washed away in the thaw.

I drove out past the gates to Luton Hoo's walled garden, over the treacherously icy hill past the water treatment plant and take shots on the top of the further hill, and looking back to the Hotel that was once the great house, and home to the Werner Collection, famous for its collection of Fabergé Eggs.

Then on to Codicote with its fine church, and Claggy Bottom and the wonderful setting of its cottage farmhouse. From there beyond to Welwyn, and back via Wheathampstead to East Hyde, where I spent the rest of the day enraptured by the racing river and how it had enticed all the local birdlife in abundance, though it was somewhat overwhelmed by the large number of gulls, that did however give me the opportunity to see that Canon's alignment of my 300mm and EOS7D had made a difference as I practiced capturing the gulls in flight.

Fortunately several knowledgable birdwatchers visited the same bridge and they generously pointed out rarer species of birds than gulls, swans, Canada geese and mallard ducks, that I had not even spotted, such as the snipe and egret. The snipe was so distant, that in the gallery it is a far smaller image due to the cropping necessary to show it at all!

The heron looked bitterly cold as it hunched up in a tree, a magpie watched from afar, a red kite over flew, the pied wagtail ventured from the muddy bank to strut across the patches of snow amidst the grass tussocks, and a robin and jackdaw were tempted to the parapet by seeds and nuts I had laid along it. Courtesy of the aforesaid experts spotting the wagtail and kite, they also pointed out the landing of a kestrel on the nearby pylon. To them I am very grateful – I need every help I can get to spot such birds.

As I left with the clouds covering the sun once again, I got a shot of shy sun and rich yet pale orange glow diagonally behind a skeletal tree on the brow of the hill as I left. The water level under the bridge had noticeably risen over the hours I had spent there, and I have no doubt the banks will recede still further over the next few days and swamp much of the fields close by.