Murky Waters

When I go out to take photos, I sometimes have a plan and sometimes I don't, but if I do, I know that it’s also good to be flexible. Maybe the weather’s not right, maybe those glorious fields of rapeseed flowers have been harvested, or maybe the birds didn’t show up. But none of those unfortunate circumstances mean that I can’t shoot something else or the same thing but with a different perspective.

That’s what happened this week at the wetlands. It finally cooled off enough to venture out and drive over. But this time I went to a different pond – the second of the only two ponds that are being suupplied with water from the park’s reserve through the summer. 

There I found nothing exotic (by that I mean flamingos). But I did find a species I hadn’t seen before. Of course being that I’ve only recently started trying to identify birds, maybe I had seen them. In fact, from a distance I thought they were ducks. My bird book said they were coots. It seems they run across the surface of the water when they take off to fly, but I didn’t see that.

So what I did see was coots, ducks, gulls (couldn’t figure out which type – there are several), and a white stork, a gull, and a little egret in flight. The murky water and reflections produced photos that were more interesting than their subjects. It was a good day.