and occasionally rides a bike.
A word of warning. The walk descriptions are not detailed enough to guide you - please take a map. The batteries never run out, and you always have a signal. Oh, And don't take left or right as gospel!

Friday, July 18, 2014

NR 10 (kinda) plus Pitsford Nature Resverve

Wednesday 16 July 2014. With Marta, on a hot and humid day. About seven and a half miles.  We get permits for the Nature Reserve - just as well, since for the first time we have to produce them. 

Then we walk along the road to Holcot, and take a footpath and road through the village, walk along the Walgrave Road to where the Northamptonshire Round all began for us on 11 August 2013. It's taken us almost a year for one reason or another!




Then we continue along the Walgrave Road until we reach an entrance to the Nature Reserve, and follow the path round by the water anti-clockwise. 
We stop at a hide with a great view of a grebe on a nest.

After walking a little more we go into a hide where there are two workers who have been ringing birds - they show us a garden warbler, and explain just how far this less than robin-sized bird migrates each year. 

Lots of other birds - heron, egret, terns, geese, ducks - but one of the highlights of the day was the coot family,  very close to one of the hides.  
Then there were the great crested grebes.  For the first time I've seen a young bird riding on a parent's back. We saw a grebe pair with three youngsters.
Then first one, then another of the juveniles "disappeared". The photographs are not by any means perfect, but they confirm what we thought was happening.



We finish our walk with a sandwich and salad in the White Swan in Holcot - very satisfactory! 

Click on any pic to enlarge

2 comments:

Ida Jones said...

That looks a lovely time in the final stage to achieve walking the Northamptonshire Round. Well done!

Love the bird photos!

aliqot said...

Thanks, Ida - we really enjoyed this as a change,