I have visited this lake before, but it was a while back, before the current lockdown, yet it was ironically less busy on that occasion. Free from the recent restrictions, the Public were out in force, often in quite large groups, which I am presuming are family-related. I was in no hurry, so taking any gaps in the trees that led to the bank of the lake was not always an avoidance manoeuvre, but an opportunity to explore. The shoreline mostly displaying the roots of its past by the vast numbers of broken bricks present. Every so often there are sections of mortared brickworks, and one of these actually resembles the shape of a small submarine with a conning tower, which certainly was not going to be missed by my camera!
The surface of the lake was largely given over to sailing dinghies, with a few powered boats as spectators as well as rescue craft. As there was quite a brisk, though gusty wind, the swan families were keeping often close to the shore, in the areas where the trees and bushes kept them more protected from the human visitors. There was one spot where the bricks have been carefully arranged to presumably improve angling, by keeping an area clear of more of the invasion of nearby foliage, but what surprise me is there are so many steep and muddy banks which could benefit from the use of stacking such bricks to make access safer.
Perhaps, because the wind was often quite strong on this visit, I saw fewer butterflies than I had hoped, and I also witnessed a wasp attack one butterfly, and I thought this was likely to have a bad outcome for the butterfly, but surprisingly, it did not succumb, perhaps the sometimes ragged wings I see an assume as general wear ‘n’ tear are in fact evidence of such attacks from predatory wasps.
On this trip, I saw no dragonflies and only a few damselflies, so perhaps the wind was a deterrent to flying operations at this time. I did notice that the blackberries were certainly coming on, but the few that looked ripe I was not prepared to attempt to eat, in case the Virus had contaminated them, and they had definitely not reached the numbers where considering picking numerous fruit that could be washed after collection; there were simply too few for that to be a viable option.
It was fortunate that despite the powered boats were not ever close, this lens was still able to capture some shots of them at a reasonable quality, but the carrying of a longer lens and a heavy tripod was never an option for this visit. The cloud cover was often not conducive to good quality, but it was still great to be out and in some sunshine, and to chat with some of the other visitors.
No comments:
Post a Comment