Staying grounded

Posted on October 28 2023

I was on the banks of the River Cam this morning, as is often my habit:

Turning round, the view was over the Kingfisher Bridge nature reserve:

The water in the lake is three metres lower than in the river.

There was almost no one around.

It was a time to think, breathe deeply, and watch.

The lake was busy: teal, mallard, shoveller, coot, cormorants, great white and little egrets, herons, 150+ greylag geese (60 arrived together - a great sight), Canada geese, great crested grebe, wigeon and more.

Nearby, as I took the photos, a wren was letting the world know of its presence - although I did not see it.

The same could be said of great tit, blue tit, robin, chaffinch and greenfinch: I am not sure I saw any of them.

But three marsh harriers did show up - putting up 100 or so lapwing and a few golden plover - which is why I suspect there are none in the above shot.

A kestrel was also seen and, the usual corvids, and more.

In a crazy world, this helps keep me grounded.

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10 Responses

  1. Heather Newby says:
    October 29 2023 at 7:48 am

    Beautiful. And I observe birds everyday here in Skåne on my walk. Great spotted woodpeckers are having fun in the trees at the moment yesterdays treat was a nuthatch quite close to us and the red caps of flyagarics are coming up now. Definitely keeps me sane. I’m glad the geese are arriving – we must have seen thousands fly over us in the last weeks

  2. Pilgrim Slight Return says:
    October 29 2023 at 8:39 am

    You had better weather that we did yesterday and even though your neck of the woods look a bit flat for my taste, one cannot deny that it is very pretty – our countryside in this country is one of our best assets – I never tire of it.

    • Richard Murphy says:
      October 29 2023 at 8:53 am

      Flat? There’s a 3 metre height difference I mentioned in the post to take into account 🙂

      I love hills and mountains.

      I always enjoy returning to the weird fen landscape.

  3. Jenw says:
    October 29 2023 at 5:29 pm

    Our village has just been on the local news – flooded.
    The shops in the hign street, called Front Street round here, have been inundated, and lots of people have had to be evacuated. They will not be able to get back in their homes overnight. It has ben raining all day and is not supposed to stop until tomorrow morning.
    Fortunately it’s half term next week, and the buses are on strike. My son and his family and I live up the same hill, so we are all safe.
    The irony is that our tory councillors put a leaflet through the doors a couple of weeks ago saying that they had looked at the flood plan, and were trying to take the credit for what had been done before they came into power. I bet they don’t want to take credit now.
    My granddaughter whose parents live in Ely loves coming back up north for the hills.
    She lives in York now, which is also flooded!