Birds and Some Steam

I think that the mild weather at the beginning of April got me into thinking that was how April should be and now with temperatures returning to more normal values for the time of year it seems positively cool. High pressure has been in charge over the last few days bringing settled conditions. In any sunshine it has felt pleasant but out of the sunshine pretty chilly.

We’d decided on a couple of days away visiting the Anglian Bird Watching Centre situated on Rutland Water on Friday and then The Great Central Railway the following day.

The Anglian Bird Watching centre is the largest reserve we've visited. It has so many hides that we didn't manage to get round them all on our visit. We had trouble finding our way around the reserve and at one time we weren't sure of our way back to the Visitors’ Centre. A couple of regular visitors helped us out and suggested where we should go to get a possible sighting of the ospreys. In the photo above you can just make out the nest and the male osprey perched in the tree above. Apologies for the photo quality but the birds were a long way away.

We also spotted an Egyptian Goose which we hadn't seen before. One pair had some goslings but they were too far away to get a good photo. Walking around the reserve involved crossing a few fields which we filled with lambs. Couldn't resist a few photos.

On Saturday the Great Central Railway were holding a gala called “Railways at Work Weekend” and Quorn and Woodhouse Station was converted to a replica station when the railway was the hub of the village.

There were a few lovingly restored old vehicles in the station yard and some even older ones were making some repairs to the pot holes in the car park.

There were steam hauled trains making regular journeys from Loughborough to Leicester and the occasional freight train too.

Now we probably need to catch up on a bit of gardening.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett