Double take

Whooper Swans, Draycote Water, (2007)

Monday 25th October 2010

Another beautiful autumn day. Jan and I had a walk round Draycote Reservoir, we both needed the exercise. I took my bins , I don't feel dressed without them, but there wasn't much to look at. Very few ducks, a handful of Meadow pipits and 3 Swans out in the middle. I hardly raised my bins the whole way round but we were enjoying our walk There were very few people about which surprised me as its half term. On returning home I checked the pager, 'Waxwings, Waxwings, Lapland Bunting, 2 Whooper Swans, Draycote Water '. What, **!!!** 'ell. Miss ID? Seen early morning and flown off? Or just maybe 2 of the 3 Swans seen distantly. Arghh, what to do? If they were still there I'd seen them, tick, thank you very much, end of story. No wouldn't be right I had to ID them to tick them. So off I goes again. With scope at the ready I scanned the area I'd seen the Swans before. Not there but it wasnt too long before I had 3 Swans in view. Sure enough 1 Mute Swan with 2 Whooper Swans (174) in tow. The effort had been worth it. All that remained was to go back to the car park swop the scope for the camera and get a record shot. Ooops, no Memory card - I was making hard work of this but luckily I'm able to delve into the achives and include an image of a couple of Whoopers at Draycote I took earlier - 2007 to be exact. Could even be the same birds.