Totally Self-absorbed Coot

On an earlier visit to Priory Park, I extracted a series of images of a Coot from the main gallery in case it was simply a distraction. But by itself, I felt it worth a gallery, purely because the Coot had absolutely no interest in me; it was totally absorbed in its own life, and I represented no form of interest or threat, so if I took pictures, well so be it! It had allowed me to capture many more shots than I am displaying here, so these are simply a snapshot of those moments in its day.

I was not dressed in camouflage, or ensconced in a hide; I had just quietly dropped to a squat, and just started recording the scene that unfolded, and was rewarded by the bird simply ignoring my presence. It is rare to find my attempts at capturing the activity of insects, animals and birds with blissful acceptance of my presence and proximity – in general, I have to be lucky to work fast and silently to capture a fleeting moment, before the opportunity has passed!

I admit that a Coot is far from the most exciting of bird species, and more often than not, the activities of a Coot that I have captured has been the frequent antagonism of one bird angrily chasing another amidst much frantic flapping of wings and splashing of water! This was a relaxed and private few moments of quiet searching and feeding.

Apology to Readers (and perhaps read by Google):

New Blogger has several bugs, and although it has taken three days of frustration to bypass several of them when creating this entry, I have yet to find out how to get past the appalling hyphenation from some line ends. Hopefully, those tasked with bringing New Blogger in line with the simplicity and functionality of Blogger, will work with their longtime users of Blogger who have enjoyed a decade and more of using the former Great Product to tidy up the current Downgrade!

Should this reach the eyes of a human at Google, I would be very pleased to describe the issues I (and likely many, many more Users have been suffering recently) – I do genuinely wish to help resolve the problems that the Update has inadvertently created as when it is able to work as efficiently as Blogger used to perform, it is a great product.

Two separate issues that need attention are Tabbing and Uncropped headline Images. When any narrative has paragraphs (sepecially when being viewed on phones) readability is VASTLY improved by Initial Paragraph indenting.) I am not asking for a full Word Processor, I just want Images and text to be WYSIWYG; so if I set a pixel dimension for width I expect this to be honoured relative to the display width, not automatically lopped from the right.

2013 Tringford Fish Restocking

Learning that Tringford Fishing Season opens at Easter, and that they were due to receive a fresh stock of Rainbow Trout, I drove down in time to see the two tanks’ worth arriving. A tank at a time is opened and a chute attached, then the sluice gate is opened and the fish enter the reservoir helped by the water – I swear I caught one trying to leap back up!

After the last reluctant ones were given a helping hand from the empty tank, the next task was to ensure that they all make it safely from beyond the shore; one or two somehow managed to get under the overhang and a few more seemed to want to rest by reeds at the water’s edge, but with a little tickle from a stick they were persuaded to reach out for deeper water.

The anglers’ boats at the jetty were all small reservoirs in their own rights, thanks to the rain that has been falling of late, so I now realised why the Water Bailliff was so named as shortly, canibalised plastic containers became makeshift bailers, as Bob and Colin set to, reducing the level in the old Rothschild boat.

Then all three of us went out on to the lake, so Bob could check what maintenance he would be needing to do before his anglers arrived for the start of the season. There was not too much bird activity, but I did spot a coot building its nest, and several tufted ducks, which flew off as we neared.

I felt compelled to capture some shots of Colin, because here was a face with a ton of character, and often a mischievous grin; I decided he should be portrayed in black and white, as I felt they then told much more of the man and his travels.

Westcott Day, followed by Bulbourne and Tringford flowers

A bright day with a chance to see how Lizzy’s garden was progressing and to see the kitchen in sunshine provided a few interesting examples of colour, light and shade.

A day or two later, visit Bulbourne to see the Blacksmith where there was a beautiful display of Spring flowers rarely all seen at the same time, daffodils, tulips, and early bluebells with some dandelions thrown in for good measure! Then on to Tringford to meet the man who introduced me to the bailiff, which allowed me to capture life on both the stream and the reservoir, there in his garden were poppies and tulips.

There were Greylag, Canada Geese, a Heron, Coots and a Grebe to be found in flight, on the water and on the ground in a field still with blossom on the trees, yet at long last the day had the warmth of coming summer.

Later still, and I took a walk along the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union canal, and managed to get up close and personal to a Starling. Fishermen were to be found in abundance as were cyclists, families with children and dogs and a few slowly chugging narrowboats. A woman was knitting seated by the towpath and a man ensconced with his Sunday newspaper outside his galley. Birds were to be seen gathering twigs for nest-building others sang invisibly in the bushes, and overhead were the occasional sounds of light aircraft, cattle lowed in the fields nearby and the horses wandered slowly with swishing tails – the midges and seemingly mosquitoes were the reason for that. There were some very strange canoes on the canal looking very precariously low in the water.

The shot of the anchor was especially for Catherine.