Bit of a mixed day…

…weather-wise. Fairly mild but with a chilly breeze, lots of clouds but then periods of really bright sunshine. Then suddenly all goes grey and overcast again, and there were a couple of occasions when I even felt some spots of rain (not that it developed into anything though).

Consequently rather challenging for pic-taking.

But I persevered (as one does). One of my favoured haunts for outings with the camera is along the River Great Ouse in Bedford, opposite side to what’s known as the Embankment, on the east side of the town centre.
Today however I changed tactics slightly and went along the river bank to the west of the town centre.

Hadn’t been along there for literally years (um, last time I walked that way was back in about ’93/4 I think). My intended destination was a place named Kempston Mill but somewhere along the route I must have taken a wrong pathway cos I ended up completely passing it (I think) without a sight of the Mill. Just shows what senility does for you!

Anyway, managed to get some rather pleasing pics (or pleasing to me at least) and I was particularly pleased with the above shot, although technically it leaves a lot to be desired perhaps.
Almost missed it in fact. Was ambling slowly back toward town and saw what I at first thought was a log sticking out of the river/bank.
“Quite an interesting shape”, thinks I, “looks a bit like a bird”. But decided it didn’t really merit a shot so carried on ambling then, bugger me, it moved!

“Crikey, it really is a bird. Wow! And I’ve never seen one like that before… or not along here anyway.”

So ever so quietly crouch down and stick my lens through a gap in some tree branches, zoom in a bit and, fingers crossed, managed to fire off three shots before the little fellah decides to fly off.
All the way back to town I was desperately hoping I’d managed to get reasonable focus with at least one of the shots, cos that’d simply make my day… make the entire trek worthwhile, even if all the rest of the pics turned out to be rubbish.

And on a final note, clicking on any of the pics will reveal I haven’t hosted these at my customary Flickr, but am trying out this new site (new to me that is) ipernity.
Been mightily impressed with it so far, and I may well eventually use it as my principal photo-sharing site. My own page there is fotdmike.ipernity.com.

If anyone from here wants to join and add me as a contact that’d be great cos its a bit lonely there at the mo’.