Rushden morning ramble

It was warm and very still at 8.20 this morning . The lake was so clear it was like looking at a book about fish. There were pike of different sizes hanging motionless at the top levels with forests of weed and darting shoals of tiny fish below them.

Further along there were literally thousands of striped perch of all sizes filling the open spaces. While attempting to count this mass of fish I saw a huge carp as it torpedoed out of some weed and then in a quick manoeuvre was gone again.

I am really interested in seeing more fish and photographing them. The illustrations below show the fantastic markings of the perch and the pikes long shape.

This was a lovely morning quiet and warm, the juvenile heron we had seen over the last few days had moved from the wooden jetty to a fallen tree in a smaller lake. This heron is paler than the adults and seems unperturbed by people at the moment.

This is him standing on the big lake jetty where he was at one point mobbed by black headed gills, he saw them off!

This is an unclear photo as I only had my phone but he is happily standing on a semi submerged tree preening and was Not disturbed by us watching for quite a while. As we wandered on we met a wildlife trust ranger who pointed out that there are chicks on the tern rafts. We are going back tomorrow with the binoculars and the big lens, watch this space !

The hover flies were active, I love these papery almost flatted flies as they land and feed .

There were hundreds of them busy in the flowers.

Snails are hidden up trunks , under leaves in this warm weather .

There are plenty of butterflies flying, I noted skippers and speckled woods and managed to take a photo of this lovely gatekeeper.

Not to be disappointed by flowers these two were stunning .

This yellow plant is tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) it was very tall and looked like it belonged in a florists. The tall vetch at the top was tall and strong . This needs further identification , I am going back with a book !

Just at the end of this walk we bumped into a huge bumblebee, so huge it was amazing it could stay in the air !