Two Turtles

A different Sunday for us, with no church and no Adega.

Instead, this afternoon, we took the kayak out for its first outing this year. It was so worth it; I took even more photos than at the Equestrian Pilgrimage yesterday. A pair of birds of prey doing an aerial dance. Turtles everywhere, quite hard to see until they plop into the water, but this mama and baby let us get really close. 

We were so busy looking at them, Mike paddling as softly as possible and me photographing, when suddenly a whoosh! and a massive owl swooped out from the rocks and over our heads, never seen that before. And then the rabbits it probably feeds on. And then loads of baby geese following their parents across the water.

We stopped at "Bird Island", and Mike thought there might be nests. Hundreds of birds were swarming over us, and then Mike saw a goose lift off its nest; then we saw loads more. And then, nests everywhere from one of the other birds, my extra shows the size. There were at least two other types of water bird, don't know which sort this was. Would love to have explored more, but didn't want to disturb the birds anymore. Happy to see them all settling again as we paddled off, everything glowing golden as the sun set.

Gratefuls:
- living so near to all this, and so easily accessible
- not another soul on the Lake, or anywhere that we saw
- avocado and cheese on toast, with a glass of red, the half moon shining through the vines above us

And, just found out, Mourão had a small earthquake last night. We heard the rumble and wondered what it was... Mike thought thunder, which seemed unlikely.