The birds on the lakes....

....are Goosanders. So that's that little mystery solved. I still didn't take my proper camera mind, but I got the pocket bins out of the glove box and took a note of what they looked like properly, and then remembered I leave my old Praktica digi camera in the car for the occasional use, so got that out. There are 8 females and 2 males, have never seen any there before the other day, I just looked it up in my field guide, typically the on the last of the ducks' pages after I'd all but given up. There's also lots of Mallards down at the moment, I counted over 20 anyway, they all seemed to be paired up already.

The weather was really windy this morning, very strong gusts, so I didn't rush to go out until after lunch. Was laying in bed and saw my lovely big Red Kite dipping and gliding about 20 feet up, just over the garden, what a lovely sight, not seen him in ages. Not many people could be treated to such a view from their beds could they?

Only popped to Tesco this afternoon to buy a few bits, just to get out really and took Emma for her walk first. Thank god I did, came out of the shop and there was a monsoon raging. Absolutely torrenting down it was, luckily there's a covered walkway to where I'd parked (good old Tesco, good job I'd not gone to Morrisons...) Had to sit in the car for a few minutes for it to ease off before I started for home. The roads were all flooded a lot of the way where the drains couldn't cope with the volume coming down, and all the paths were covered with slush, so I guess it was sleeting whilst I was still in the shop. Not so bad back here though, must have missed us for a change!