Thursday 8 August 2019

Possibly for the Last Time 8th August 2019.


Yes I know. I have already been teased with suggestions that I should set up home in the hide or maybe find something more useful to do like paint the fence or attend the garden.

I can counter with the fact that an opportunity such as this to view Kingfishers so closely is very rare indeed, so why not make the most of it while it persists, if you like Kingfishers, which I do. What is there not to like about a very beautiful bird of spectacular colours to be seen from a hide that is often empty, situated in a gentle, picture postcard, rural environment  that soothes the soul and that I am fortunate to live in. And it is all free. No charge whatsoever whereas I know of birders who have paid a hundred pounds a day to sit in a hide to see and photograph a Kingfisher!

Today I also had another purpose, to go to the hide to put up a couple of prints of the Kingfishers on the wooden wall of the hide. I have recently joined 'The Friends of Farmoor' which is absolutely free to join and meets every Friday at eleven am in Hackett's Cafe at the yacht club.We have the active support of Thames Water and there are plans for a wild flower meadow, butterfly and bird walks, work parties to create habitat and do on-going general maintenance and care of the three hides at Pinkhill, Shrike Meadow and on the Causeway of the reservoir. If you wish to join you can collect a leaflet at the cafe counter in the yacht club and maybe indulge yourself in a slice of cake and a coffee or tea!


I made my way to the hide this morning by taking a more scenic route than the usual one along the concrete causeway of the reservoir, following the Thames Path as it wound its way along the bank of the river. A strong but warm southwesterly wind was swaying the tree tops into a perpetual motion of green and below, stands of reeds bent to the wind, rustling in a conspiritorial whisper. The summer grasses are now withered to the colour of straw, bland and uninspiring but every so often on the river bank a splash of bright colour relieves the monotony as the late flowering spires of Purple Betony rise up, the brilliant white trumpets of convolvulus face the sun from their bright green background of leaf, straggling through the dead and dying grasses whilst the cerise pink flowers on grey green stems of Great Willowherb lean out over the river's bank. 

A large butterfly, superficially dark, swooped around me in careereing flight, flying towards me and then away and finally grounded itself on a patch of dry earth with spread wings of black, red and white to absorb the heat of the sun. A Red Admiral. No such brazen exhibitionism was forthcoming from the lowly Meadow Browns which contented themselves with lolloping amongst the dead grass which complemented their drab brown colour to perfection.

Red Admiral
I opened the door of the hide in some trepidation as on previous days there had been, by Shrike Meadow's lowly standards quite a 'crowd' of half a dozen souls but it was empty. 


Once inside I pinned the prints to the back wall and then of course temptation took hold. 'I will just give it half an hour' I said to myself and the Kingfisher duly obliged by appearing on the post twenty minutes later. Well it seemed foolish not to take advantage and so I duly raised the camera.


















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