4th and 5th May

At last I've gotten around to editing enough of the nearly 1500 photos I took of the powerboat racing on Saturday and Sunday to post some here.
My blip for Saturday 4th May was of a guy performing a backflip on a jet ski, and Sunday 5th May's was of the first and second placed boats in the last race of the weekend. Click the dates to check them out.
The rest of the photos are in no particular order.

The photos above are from two races on Saturday afternoon. Below are photo from the two Sunday races.

This last photo was taken on Saturday and is of two guys going at a more sedate pace.

3rd May

Bit of a quiet day today, grabbed the camera and headed towards town, stopping on the way to take a couple of shots of some buttercups for a double blip challenge, Flower Friday and this weeks Wild Flowers challenge. Click the date to see it 3rd May.

Grabbed a bag of mixed veg from Iceland and walked over to the duckponds As I was scattering the veg onto the pond with Mr Swan tucking in, Mrs Swan ventured down from the nest and joined in. The eggs appear to be in good shape but no cracks showing yet.

The ducklings also joined in the feast and I had to laugh when I spotted one of the trying to tackle a bit of green bean. I'm surprised at how fast they are growing almost twice the size they were a week ago. They're still not quite safe from the gulls though, but mum keeps them safe.

The shot on the left is of one of the many 'stand-offs' before mum sees them off. They tried a couple of times to grab one but I think the ducklings are getting too quick for them.
To counter balance the nasty shot below is a cute shot of one of the ducklings.

Nearby another battle was going on, this time it was a courtship battle. A female goldfinch (on the right of the pic) had attracted two males (one visible to the left, the other is behind the daisies just behind the female). After a bit of posturing between the males, the one on the left flew off, whilst the other one disappeared into the bushes with the female.

Over on the beach it appears that somebody had too much time to spare today.

2/05/2019

Had a few appointments today so only a brief visit down to the duckponds for a couple on shots. Had just missed grabbing a shot of a goldfinch and was watching Mrs Swan when a Greenfinch landed on a nearby tree. Managed to grab a shot for my blip before it flew off again, click the date to see it, 2nd May. This shot was captured a few minutes later when I spotted it again.
Mrs Swan is still looking after the eggs, got a good view again today as she was turning them, no cracks appearing yet. Mr Swan was down in the stream and took three or four attempts to get out this time, then went off for a swim on the pond.

The Duck family are looking good, the ducklings now about two weeks old are foraging for themselves. They are also showing more independence, going off in all directions, but mum soon gathers them together if any danger appears.
Hopefully I'll get more photos tomorrow.

1st May

Today is May Day, 1st May, but there are no photo's of Morris Dancers, Maypoles or Hobby Hoss' as I couldn't get to where any of the celebrations were. Instead I took a stroll down to the duckponds with both joy and sadness in the air. The joy was seeing Mr and Mrs Swan at the nest with Mrs Swan turning the eggs. I love seeing the tender way she moves around the nest and turns the eggs. Getting excited as they should hatch in the next week or two.

The sadness was hearing then seeing what I believe was the Mummy Moorhen calling out and sitting on what was one of her nests. Sadly all of her chicks have been 'taken' presumably by the gulls.

Tipping the balance back in favour of good news the duck family are doing well, the ducklings are starting to show some independence, swimming of in different directions, 

but mum still keeps a watchful eye, calling them back to her if she spies danger.

I've also learnt a useful tip over the past couple of days, despite reports saying you shouldn't feed swans and ducks bread, as long as it is not mouldy it is fine. But after a comment from someone I met down at the ponds and a bit of google searching I found out it's better to feed them frozen peas or sweetcorn (fresh off the cob or tinned, obviously not in the tin). Other things better than bread are lettuce, cucumber or spinach.

30th April

Slowly catching up with the 'extras' from the past couple of days, due to the number of photos I took on Monday, not so many taken today, mainly flowers. My blip for today, 30th April, was of some small buds waiting to flower. The shot on the right is of some that have already bloomed. Below is the only other reasonable shot from a poor bunch.

29th April

Due to number of photos taken during a nearly 4 hour visit to the duckponds (almost 300, than goodness for digital photography) this post is two days late.

On Monday I was torn between two different photos for two different challenges. One was a black and white version of this photo of the ducklings running towards me, used for the Mono Monday challenge, 29th April (click the date to see it).

The second was the shot on the right, a zoomed close up photo of the Mr Swans eye, I was considering entering this for the community challenge minimalism. Mrs Swan was sitting comfortably, well as comfortable as you can sit on seven large eggs.

Below is another dose of cuteness from the six ducklings. I was going to include some photos of the moorhens and their chicks, sadly mother nature has dealt a cruel blow, the gulls appear to have snatched the remaining chicks so I have decided not to post them.

Even daddy wanted to get in on the action when he photobombed a shot of his brood.

There's a bit of an uneven spread between male and female ducks on the pond at the moment, about a 2 to 1 ratio, which leads to the all boys club (below left) and the occasional fight.

My final shot for today is this close up of a snuggled up female.