White Water

This is the Dambusters Dam - Derwent Dam in the Upper Derwent valley in the Peak District.

This was my first shot on arrival at the dam and I'm glad I took it as after a long conversation on birds and bird politics with Mike Groves and his wife the sun was barely seen again.

Mike is a member of the Tayside Raptor group and has a very attractive website called Moorland matters . We met up with them 4 hours later having been on opposite sides of Derwent and Howden Resevoirs during that time. We failed to spot a single raptor between us in all that time.

The gloom was lifted by news from Mike that there were 12 Whooper Swans on the water near the top of the valley. So a dash and splash in the car through all the puddles and potholes brought them into sight in the distance nearer to Howden Clough than road side of the valley. But the fun wasn't over they started trumpeting and soon were off and into the air - a great sight and sound and not one regularly seen in this area. Have a listen to the audio on the RSBP site and I can assure you they really do sound like that !

My photo of the Whooper Swans on Flickr