Sunday 11 November 2012

Water log

Went to Tring Reservoirs today, with Our Lass and the Admiral, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was very frosty first thing, when I nipped out to retrieve my wildlife cam, but even without the layer of frozen water crystals, all I had to show for 16 hours of recording were two rabbits. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. 

And so to Tring. We breakfasted at the Bluebell Cafe, each consuming a hugely delicious, if predictably unhealthy, Full English (veggie, in the case of the Admiral). In fact, I haven't eaten anything else all day, and as I write this, at 8pm, I'm just about able to look at a little mince pie with a small amount of desire.

We then decided that we had better make an attempt to walk off the calories, so took the path across the dam of Startops reservoir, around to Tringford reservoir, along a section of the Wendover arm of the Grand Union Canal, before stopping for a rest in the bird hide at Wilstone reservoir.

As well as the usual suspects of gulls and ducks, we spotted half a dozen Snipe, a Kingfisher, a Buzzard, an unidentified butterfly and a Migrant Hawker dragonfly. This latter fact will immensely  please my fellow blogger at Nature ID, as I only recently conceded defeat in the "Who will record the latest dragonfly sighting in 2012?" challenge. It serves me right. But to be fair, we have had some poor weather, the afore-mentioned frost and, if I look back through my notes for 2006 to 2011, no Migrant Hawkers recorded this late in the year. Doh!

From the hide, we continued on around Wilstone reservoir, tarrying briefly for a cuppa at a convenient tea shop, and then followed our outward route in reverse to return to the car.

Sorry, no photos today, I was only carrying bins.

4 comments:

holdingmoments said...

That's quite a walk Graeme. I only manage Wilstone when I go. :-)

Imperfect and Tense said...

Well, we did take most of the day to do it! It's amazing how many nature-y things need to be perused just as one is passing by a bench or seat.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

I thought it was a little early for you to concede defeat, especially before the U.S. elections. Look what you have now!

As of today, I have you beat by one day with a dragon spotted at the local Frog Pond, perhaps a blue-eyed darner. I was a little surprised by the sighting, because our warm coastal weather turned cold this past week complete with a smattering of snow in the mountains south of us. We're test driving a loaned camera, and I haven't yet loaded our pics from either camera. I'll post if I caught a positive ID.

Btw, why were you carrying trash receptacles, instead of a camera? Isn't that what "bins" are? Plus, curious to know how veggie Full English is served. That's practically an oxymoron.

Imperfect and Tense said...

Ah, Frog Pond, your secret weapon in the pitched battle that is the Odonatathon. My congratulations to you and I wanna see pics whether you can ID or not! (Is that too outrageous an ask for Nature ID?)

Hmmm, you will never know how much I agonised over the use of the word "bins"! Well, ok, it was only several microseconds, but the thought was there. It's slang for binoculars, but they could do with a clean, so maybe you're right :o)

Vegetarians, eh? There's almost as many flavours of veggie as there are calories in a cooked breakfast. Some totally abstain from meat and any derivatives, some eat dairy produce, some even eat fish. If I remember correctly, the Full English (V) was egg, hash brown, toast, baked beans, tomato, mushrooms and veggie sausage, but I could be wrong as I was too busy being a meatatarian.