Focused For Food

Peaceful, tranquil, the sound of the water slushing through the sluice, the odd buzzard cry, trees carpeting the hills touching the water's edge..a duck landing in the lake, a cormorant on watch. A totally idyllic setting.

Looking out of the beautiful Georgian windows down the picturesque gardens this morning it was clear that any walk/camera safari was going to be short lived with a mass of grey cloud heading our way.

Kitley lies at the head of the wooded creeks of the Yealm estuary. A dam had been constructed across the tidal waters to form a freshwater lake which is not very high 10 foot ..ish, lined with slate but you can walk across the top amongst shrubs and bark chippings between the lake and the mudflats. Lurking with a lens is easy.

We spotted the egrets. Sneaking up to the sluice gate we watched them pottering in the shallows catching mostly eels as far as we could see. We never saw a fish the whole time we were there and maybe that explained the absence of kingfishers and otters which we would normally associate with the area.

Who forgot to put the clocks forward then?....well it could only have happened to us. Time was irrelevant as we were in our own little world- till we missed breakfast......:)) They did do us some toast!

Never seen an eel go in quite like this before