Biddenham - A Long Riverbank Walk

I set off to Biddenham and the River Great Ouse to stroll along the banks to capture some of the native life to be found close by. I took a shot of the Information board, to make it easy for me to reference on the blog. I have been here before, but on this occasion I was here to explore the numerous paths leading off the main one, to reach close to the water’s edge where the subjects of my photography are to be found in fair numbers.

Fortunately, right at the beginning of the walk, there were good views of the bridge from the bank close by the Park entrance, with the river flowing fast over the shallows on the left. I took to the path that runs close to the bank, and investigated what shots could be taken along the bank side path, before finding the real images I sought; which were of the wildlife, such as butterflies, damselflies, and dragonflies and, views of the enclosing landscape of the park.

It was during the time down by the river bank, that I spotted interesting patterns in the water, so naturally they appear in the subsequent gallery of images in my blog. The River Great Ouse meanders in numerous loops in Bedfordshire, and in this area the river is often shrouded by woodland, which offers me good chances to photograph the birds, animals, insects, associated trees, vegetation, and flowers.

On this outing, there were numerous butterflies and damselflies; and the list of those, that I later managed to get shots of were Red Admiral, Brown Hawker, Ruddy Darter, Comma, and Meadow Brown butterflies, and Damselflies. One such, I had never seen before, the Emerald Damselfly. Altogether, I had a very enjoyable and productive afternoon.Later, after working through the editing I found myself with one image over a round number to fill four pages in the gallery to be uploaded to the server, so one more look through the images to decide which one is for the chop! Lastly, which image or images will head up the Blog entry, when it is ready to go online.

Biddenham Anniversary Trail – An Investigative Visit

Even though it was a dull day, I thought it worthwhile taking a look at the Lottery Funded Anniversary Trail at Biddenham to see what possibilities of wildlife photography might exist there. I entered the trail opposite the Golf Club.

I took a stroll to the left when I had entered, going clockwise for a short distance before deciding it was a tad more promising in the opposing direction, and I followed the main track with excursions down to the riverbank every so often, but the only birds I came across at first were magpies, perched on posts on the right, and long before I got near they took flight to the high trees on the farther shore. 

I met dog strollers along the way and there were three anglers two of whom I did engage in brief conversation to ascertain what had been sighted in terms of wildlife and learned little beyond that it was not visited by many kingfishers, the most promising information was a sighting of an owl, in daylight; from a lady with two dogs she was training, one of whom spent a deal of the time running sideways – a trait she was trying to eradicate, though meeting with little success to date! The angler I did not chat to I did take a shot of as he was exceedingly well-camouflaged!

At one stage I thought I spotted either a butterfly or moth which came as something of a shock as the weather had hardly been conducive to their survival, but before I had a chance to get close enough to see exactly what I had seen it had disappeared. I stayed awhile to see whether I might catch a further glimpse, but without any success. I thought I spotted a distant swan slowly approaching, but as it drew closer it turned out it was a part-submerged, upturned plastic boat! 

Only after a trip to beyond the Mill bridge and back again did a milky sunlight break through the cloud cover, and it was at this stage that I spotted a fox a considerable distance away, since I only had my 300mm lens with me, it was wandering stealthily across the field and I tried to anticipate where it might come closer and walked in the general direction, but when I got a clear view of the field again the fox was nowhere to be seen. For this reason and the lack of colour in the few shots I did take, I converted them to black and white for the gallery.