By the riverbank

Oh wonderful sun, shining and warming us all day. Helena needed a lift to a job again, so I prepared myself try and blip the swans on the Frome, which have been on holiday whenever I have looked for them recently.

As soon as they saw me approach the small bridge, the three adults sailed majestically towards me. But I didn't have much luck with my exposures between the bright sun, and the deep shadows under the trees.

I came back to pick Helena up and together we returned to the river, as Helena always like to see the swans. Usually she walks home along the canal towpath and has seen them fledge this year, if that is what they do when becoming adult.

Helena noticed a spider's web and a mushroom growing on the riverbank. I tried again but still not quite right. But they had gone awol again, so we went on to explore on the far side of the bridge. As we leant over the parapet, a kingfisher flew out from under the bridge and away past us down the river, to land on advantageous branch. Magic. The first kingfisher I have seen in Stroud's valleys. I know them of old on the river Lambourn, running behind my parents former kitchen window. An archetypal image.

I waited expectantly with the camera focussed on the branch we saw it land on, but it had gone for now.

So, after all, these swans are my tribute to life on the Frome's riverbank as autumn approaches.