Knaresborough...

The snug, Blind Jack's...

Mother Shipton, gazing into the future, with Blind Jack's in the background...

Fairburn Ings...

I spent a few hours wandering around Fairburn Ings, an RSPB reserve created from old colliary tips, wedged between motorways, bordered on one side by the River Aire and overlooked by Ferrybridge power station. It’s an unlikely spot for a bird reserve, but birds don’t share our sense of the aesthetic. If they can find a territory, sources of food and nesting sites, they’re happy to ignore the grot.

I saw plenty of ducks: tufted duck, pochard, wigeon, shoveler and shelduck, also gooseander and some great crested grebes (including one still in breeding plumage). A pair of little grebes, so tiny they’d fit in the palm of your hand, were ducking and diving. Best of all was a pair of goldeneye, a handsome little diving duck...

A visitor to one of the hides at Fairburn Ings...

Cyclists at Fairburn Ings...

Blacktoft Sands...

Called in at Blacktoft Sands, an RSPB reserve just south of the Humber. No great numbers of waders, but still one or two surprises: redshank, spotted redshank, dunlin, snipe, ruff and black tailed godwit. Ducks: shoveler, shelduck, wigeon and teal. A couple of marsh harriers quartered over the reedbeds; I watched a little egret catching fish and a bird-watcher eating his sandwiches…

Twilight...

I enjoy doing twilight shots. There's a brief window of opportunity - only a few minutes - to get the shots. Licensed these two pix this week...

A fenland surprise...

Stayed in a fenland campsite last night, near Littleport. Reception took just a few seconds. No formalities; the guy just wanted to see the colour of my money. Having edited and uploaded a backlog of pix, I walked along the riverbank of the Great Ouse to a nearby pub and ordered a drink and a meal. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spied two familiar faces: Jean and John, who used to run the Hourglass Gallery in Hebden Bridge. They’re living in fenland now, and don’t look a day older than when I saw them last… maybe 15 years ago…

Great egret...

Had a couple of hours watching birds at Fen Drayon Lakes, one of a number of nature reserves in and around the Ouse fens. It was good to feel the sun on my back, though the birdlife wasn’t too exciting: grebes, wigeons, tufted ducks, etc. I saw a great egret standing close to a heron, and noticed how similar in size they were. In a couple of years these egrets may be as common as little egrets have become, and won’t even be mentioned in dispatches by those twitchers who are only interested in rarities.

Photogenic light this afternoon, so I’m shooting pix by the quayside in St Ives…

Heading north...

Visited sister Kari, to coincide with her last day of chemotherapy. Then Kevin, in a little rural idyll near Hitchin. Now heading north through heavy rain…