Making a splash

Foulshaw Moss, Cumbria

It was a bit of a non-stop day at work today, and I needed a bit of wind down time at the end. So, I popped into Foulshaw before going home with a view to capturing some more dragon and damsel pictures. There were a few about, and I took some perfectly acceptable damsel shots that will go into the Blipfolio when I have time, but in the end I preferred this photo.

While I was watching the main pool and seeing no dragonflies patrolling, small numbers of swallows and martins started arriving to dip for water. I'm sure this was not a matter of misjudgement, but every so often one would dip fully into the water creating quite a splash. Maybe this is about cleaning the plumage or helping with parasite control. Whatever, it was difficult to photograph, they are so quick there is no chance to focus, and even shutter speeds of 1/1000th of a second do not freeze the wings. So, this is a bit of an impressionistic view of one of the sand martins.

To round the visit off, there was another hobby perched on one of the pine trees, and even better, two ospreys came flying across the bog and landed in the pines. That takes my year list to 139 species.