Just a small window of opportunity this morning to get some fresh air and enjoy nature and I was well rewarded in the hour and a half on my walk around Duchess Pond in Stoke Park, Bristol. Quite chilly to start but it soon warmed up especially with so much activity.

I saw 4 chiffchaffs and a wood warbler (probably feeding some young), a long-tailed tit, a reed bunting, a whitethroat, a wren, 6 swifts flying around (but not coming close to the pond), a heron and a cormorant fishing quite successfully, 4 Canada geese and a good number of mallards (but only one duckling on view). On the small pond there were 2 coots and a moorhen and in the meadows behind masses of crows and jackdaws.

There were white butterflies and a tortoiseshell butterfly and a fisherman who had caught an eel. As well as the beautiful hawthorn blossom there were yellow and purple irises around the pond.

ChiffChaff 

Wren

Long-tailed tit

Reed Bunting

Whitethroat

Wood warbler (I think)

Cormorant swallowing a fish

Grey Heron grabbing a fish before the cormorant eats them all

A bee making the most of the yellow irises.

The only duckling to be seen

A distant swift

Moorhen

One of the two coots on the small pond

Click below for my gallery of photos from this morning