I woke to another beautiful morning today, in fact this past weekend has been lovely too. Whilst out with Meg & Gracie on Saturday and Sunday morning walks we spotted a pair of Roe deer both days on the Barff and on Sunday I watched one run the full length of the corn field from the Mill lane junction on the bypass to the golf club.

Overnight last night there had been a real heavy dew and although we had a good walk the grass around the perimeter fence on the top of Tap Hill is quite dense in places, taller than me, combined with the nettles and thistles, by the time we got round the path I was soaked through, (note to self) must remember not to take this track after a heavy dew!

I had arranged to go back to the reserve at Fairburn after breakfast so it was a quick shower, cup of tea and a slice of toast before I loaded the camera gear into the car and set of for the reserve. 

The temperature was 20C at 9.00am as I arrived at the reserve; the sun was shining, the light easterly wind providing some light respite from the heat of the sun. I popped into the visitors centre for a coffee and made my way over to the Spoonbill viewing area. It is approximately a ten minute walk across fields to the viewpoint which isn’t a problem, there are lovely views across this part of the reserve and the field is a mass of wild grasses, wild flowers and thistles. Today what was most noticeable were the amount of Dragonflies and Damselflies flittering along the trail, some the size of your hand, others with beautiful markings, reds, blues, browns, lovely colours and such delicate wings. 

It was 9.15am as I was setting up my tripod at the viewpoint. I could see the four chicks in the nest with a parent bird at the back doing the housekeeping. From a photography point of view it stayed like this for the rest of the morning, no coming or going and the chicks still firmly anchored into the nest. The Little Egrets and Grey Herons were quite active though around the Spoonbill area, along with the Cormorants who contently sat and dried their outstretched wings in the morning sunlight. It was nice to see a pair of Kingfishers who spent several minutes in the willow tree in front of the Spoonbills nest area. With no signs of any sudden changes on the Spoonbill nest and the chicks soundly asleep, I headed back to the visitors centre for a quick coffee before heading down to the swan feeding platform on the main bay area. The water level has dropped quite significantly in this lake, exposing vast expanses of mud flats on the water’s edge. The Avocets chicks were sleeping to the left of the lake on the parched mud, their parents noisily seeing off an inquisitive Moorhen which encroached to closely to them. To the right, on the opposite side of the lake were another two pair of Avocets busily sweeping their beaks through the muddy water in search of food, unfortunately too far away to get a reasonable photograph. 

By now the time was nearing lunchtime so I headed back to the car and home. It has been a little frustrating this morning with the time I had available, obviously it is great to see the Spoonbills doing really well and continuing to grow and develop, I am sure they have had a good start to their young lives, they haven’t yet encountered the strong prevailing westerly wind let alone seen any rain since they were hatched, let’s hope they continue to grow.