I went out this afternoon for a number of reasons;
- I needed a walk after too many hours testing website products on an agile project this week including this morning
- I needed to get my eye back in for wildlife especially as Spring is very much on its way
I suppose it was seeing a charm of Goldfinches in our Acer Griseum this morning that stirred up the need to stretch the legs and re-tune my eye to fast moving wildlife. I have done precious little in the way of making images this Winter and there is much to catch up on.
It dawned on me that my regular walks up the River Gipping more or less faded out in 2011 when I went off to University where I embraced my love of making images of landscape subjects. Wildlife photography was I suppose one of the reasons I got into digital photography early on. Anyway, I got out and what a delightful afternoon it was.
I only met three others on the short 2 mile walk, two Jack Russell terriers and their human mum, the fewer the better when I am looking for subjects to shoot. I was surprised to find clouds of midges about already. I don’t get on with those nasty little things.
Two pairs of Grebe caught my attention. There never are that many in these old sand and gravel pits between the incredibly noisy A14 and the Gipping but I had to chuckle when I saw this one.
The very sight of the Grebe carrying a rather large bit of nesting material had me in chuckles as it reminded me of Bilbo, our long departed lummox of a Labrador. He went to the big kennel in the sky in early 1998 but he had a habit of finding and swimming with the biggest lump of wood he could find.
The Grebe gave up eventually, something Bilbo never did.