Saturday 20th March - Moore Nature Reserve

I decided to go somewhere local, as the weather was horrible, Raining as predicted. Moore Nature Reserve is only a 30 minute drive from my house, so I thought, lets chance it, you never know, it might stop raining. And it bloody well did. I arrived there at 12.30pm just to see the elusive Bittern, but 3 hours later it never showed.
During that period of staring at the reed beds shown below and being convinced that the reeds themselves were morphing into Bittern's, I did photograph other things.

Reed Bed



The Hide with no roof

This hide has no roof, so anyone wanting to go to this hide , please note, if it starts to rain, you are going to get wet.



Looking out of the hide, something jet black caught my eye. I turned round to see it disappear over the ridge of the grass mound that the hide is built on. It came into view further down and to my astonishment, there it was, only a Mink. see images below. Due to the weather conditions,excuses again, they are not the best of shots, but you can clearly see, it's a Mink. It ran along the waters edge all the way along to the reed bed on the opposite side to where the Bittern is usually seen, and disappeared out of view. Brilliant.

A series of Mink Shots













The local friendly Robin showed up again,a Mute Swan and a Grey Heron put in an appearance.











Not a bad day after all, speak to you next time.

cheers Al.