A surprise visit

A trip to Rhyl’s Brickyard Pond comes as a pleasant surprise today. G’s supposed to be giving our friend who has MS a lift to hospital, but the appointment is cancelled and so we visit this local nature reserve instead. 

I’m expecting coots, moorhens and mallards to be honest - and from this point of view I can’t say I’m disappointed. And as I’ve seen before, Brickyard has an excellent display of ‘manky mallards’, hybrids that sport completely different markings and colours. There’s a particularly sweet light coloured one what looks so pretty in the dappled light.  

But this afternoon there’s more on offer. 

There’s plenty of evidence of nest building and mating. A pair of swans are building a nest in the reeds, and a diminutive coot is carrying a ridiculously large (for him) twig across the pond. 

There’s a whole flock of tufted ducks, their golden eyes glinting in the sun, and I even spot a merganser, it’s slightly hooked red beak unmistakable. 

But the biggest thrill is seeing a pair of Great Crested Grebe. At first, I spot just one, almost sleeping, its head tucked in so I hardly recognise it as a grebe. Then there are two, and of course, I’m really hoping they’ll oblige with a beautiful weed ceremony. At first it looks hopeful as they stretch their necks and raise their crests, weaving heads back and forth, sky pointing or coyly looking away - almost curtsying but in in fact flicking up their tails feathers. Things look very promising, but  then they seem to loose interest. One heads off towards the reeds, the other later following. They’re really now out of my range, but I carry on watching - and hoping. There’s certainly action, with lots of splashing, but when I examine the images taken, it’s one of the grebes having a watery fracas with a coot! Perhaps the grebes are simply wanting privacy, and they follow one another into the reeds and out of sight. 

So, no weed dance, but I’m still so pleased to have seen them. Maybe there’ll be another visit, but it’ll have to be soon….. 


Hard to choose a main, but I’ve gone with this almost symmetrical shot, with a collage of other dance moves in extras. There’s another extra of some of the other bird life observed on a gloriously sunny afternoon.