Heard it before I saw it - this kingfisher. They are very good looking birds and I haven't seen one at the lake for over a year. He's was sitting on the tip of a funky old log, having a look around the small pond. 

I have been reading a book of poems by Mary Oliver - she writes a lot about her experiences in nature and so I enjoyed my walk today a bit more, trying to imagine what she would notice. There must have been an explosion of frogs yesterday because I have never heard so much croaking before on my strolls through the wetland ponds. Must have been thousands of them.

PASSING THE UNWORKED FIELDS
by Mary Oliver

Queen Anne's lace
is hardly 
prized but 
all the same it isn't 
idle look
how it 
stands straight on its
thin stems how it
scrubs its white faces
with the 
rags of the sun how it
makes all the 
loveliness
it can.