Coate Water Park

This great crested grebe was swimming purposefully across the lake at Coate Water Park with a live wriggly fish in its bill. I was able to keep pace with it from the lakeside path and side paths that led to landing stages, but eventually the paths veered away from the lake so I was unable to see the grebe arrive at its destination with its gift, presumably intended for its young or its partner. I did get several hand-held shots at maximum zoom of it, however.

It was one of many memorable moments of that day, and I like my blip to reflect or sum up the day in some way, but the most memorable aspect occurred later, on my way home, when an idiot van driver, driving too fast and not looking where he was going, skidded into the front of my car, Archie, on a single track road, after I had pulled to one side and stopped. I took some pictures but decided to choose a blip from more pleasant circumstances.

Unlike my previous visit to the water park, the little shop by the lake was open so I was able to buy a rightly recommended cone of chips and a tub of Cornish ice cream. The walk around the lake took about one and a quarter hours, with photography stops, and with plenty of interest. Apart from the beautiful grebe, there were many ducks, geese, coots with chicks and swans with cygnets. At one point I took a sequence of swan action, sixteen pictures over 21 seconds, that I think included 11 seconds of two swans mating. Unlike the previous occasion I didn't see any herons or greater egrets, but I did have cards in every camera.

Later in the afternoon I called at John Lewis At Home in Swindon for a complimentary lime and zucchini cake and cappuccino, and on the way out an extremely pretty Irish girl offered me a sample of Coole Swan cream liqueur, which I was happy to accept. She explained it came from Navan and used real cream from a local dairy herd and some single malt. She wasn't allowed to name the distillery involved for contractual reasons, or even tell me the region, but after some googling and researching I am of the opinion that the source was the Cooley Distillery, not far away from Navan. The liqueur is named from Yeats' poem about the swan from Coole, and IMHO was nicer than Bailey's, not that I'm an expert.

L.
11.7.2014 (1509 hr)

Blip #1315
Consecutive Blip #177
Day #1554

Alternatives:
Cranesbill
Swans And Cygnets
Return Path

Coate Water Park, 26 June 2014 (Flickr album)

Lenses: Pentax 55-300 mm x1.4 converter, 17-70 mm, 12-24 mm

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Dusty Springfield - Every Ounce Of Strength (recorded 26 November 1965, London)
This was buried on the B-side of You Don't Have To Say You Love Me in 1966, backed by her regular band the Echoes, and had originally been a minor US R&B hit for Carla Thomas on Stax Records.