Monday 17 February 2014

Not Up to Expectation

Sunday didn't live up to its forecast of lots of sunshine and clear blue skies. It got off to a poor start with some rain at breakfast time followed by a sky full of dark looking clouds amongst which were some small patches of blue.

Based on the forecast for a lovely sunny dry day, we’d planned for a visit to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s reserve at Potteric Carr. The wet start to the day set us umming and ahhing about whether to go or not. We hadn't had any more rain by lunchtime and although we still had some dark clouds around we decided we’d risk a visit.
When we arrived at Potteric Carr there was just a few spots of rain. We decided to hope for the best that the rain would hold off. We managed our walk around the reserve without getting wet. As far as the wildlife went it was a little disappointing with all the birds seemingly as far away from the hides as possible. We did though manage to spot a couple of ducks that we hadn't seen before, a shoveler and a pochard. I didn't manage a decent picture of either as they were just specks on the water.
This was my best effort at the pochard and I didn't get anything of the shoveler at all.
The weather certainly did improve through the afternoon. This was a the scene from the first hide we visited with not much sign of any sunshine at all. Later in the afternoon the cloud was much more broken with some decent sunny intervals.
In the end we were glad we decided to visit as we had an enjoyable wander around the reserve even if the bird life didn't want to play ball. At least we hadn't got wet.

2 comments:

  1. What lovely photos, especially the last one, it's stunning. A shame you didn't see more birds, maybe next time. Glad you didn't get wet, we're back to rain here today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was messing about with camera settings CJ. After some experimentation I think the camera does a pretty good job when left to its own devices. Experiments will continue though.

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