Ogden Water

Sue had a visit from her friend Helen this lunch time so I had a drive over to park opposite Coal Lane so I could walk through the conifers, past the "activity centre" to Ogden Water.

Young people were on smart wheeled sleds and scooters bombing down the grassy slope.

The only drawback was pulling their 'vehicles' back up the slope in this hot weather.

Believe it or not, just before I set off,  I checked 3 different weather forecasts (not believing the first forecast). All  3 predicted light rain for the next hour!

Being a glass half empty guy, I donned my waterproofs and took an extra cap to protect my camera from the rain.

When I got out of the car raindrops pattered on me 'ed so my waterproofs were a good idea.

2 minutes later the rain stopped so I lugged all my waterproof gear around in my pack for the next 2 hours sweating.

I enjoyed a chat, coffee, Twix and my caviar sandwich in the visitors centre before doing a circuit of the very low reservoir.

The car park was very full but the circuit was not too peopled.

Birds:-

Many Goldcrest calls and birds flitting about in the 1st conifers.

Many Gulls on the exposed shoreline, mostly Lesser Black-backed and Black Headed.

10 or so adult Herring Gulls.

2 Common Gull noted.

The odd couple of Black Headed Gulls auditioning for Med Gull status but failing alas.

2 Nuthatch.

Willow Warbler or Chiffchaff or both calls.

2 Cormorant.

Song Thrush.

A few others.

A few Swallow.

A few Swallow over the house.

Looks like Soil Hill is having some new wind turbines?

This new Google links pop up feature , is a pain in the butt - I've sent a 'complaint' to Google because I cannot seem to turn the feature off!