Kingfisher

who knew?

One of my regular walks takes me along Bristol's second river, the local version of the Frome which loops around from the foot of the Cotswold Edge, flowing for @ twenty miles to reach the Avon in what is now the Floating Dock. There is a footpath allowing you to walk its course for most of its length, not always on the riverbank or indeed with visible water (it's culverted through the city centre, actually flowing beneath the main Broadmead shopping street!) The section i usually walk is between Eastville Park and Frenchay, a three mile stretch used by countless joggers and dog walkers but still home to a surprising range of wildlife from rare native crayfish to bats but is probably best known for Kingfishers, attracting photographers from far and wide.

That said, Kingfishers are quite shy and elusive, especially when there are dogs running freely into the river and a foot flow higher than many high streets! Over the time i've been in Brizzle, i've seen grey wagtails, herons, shags, moorhens, mallards, coots, dippers and even several varieties of fish, but the most elusive have been the Kingfishers. A couple of fleeting flashes of blue are about the sum of my sightings despite looking on every walk along the river, that is until this year. A couple of weeks ago i managed to get an admittedly poor photo of one but i trumped that on Monday, joining a small crowd to observe one quite bold bird putting on a bit of a show for several minutes - i was well chuffed.

So that was Monday, yesterday, Tuesday, was cold but quite bright which encouraged me out for a ride out to Bradford on Avon, the outward route almost entirely off road as i used the canal towpath between Bath and my lunch stop. Not a lot of wildlife about and the path was quite wet and muddy in places but apart from a couple of bridges and a loop under the Avoncliffe aquaduct, it's level on this stretch with no locks. After eating my sandwich's by the river i started my return, using some little used lanes as far as Batheaston then back through Bath and so up the bike path. 81km was a decent ride with a surprising 500+m of up.

And so here we are at Wednesday, i'll go for a walk shortly, i need a few groceries, then later i'll be working on 'Gaby'. As for the back end of the week, i'm planning a longer ride to make use of tomorrow's bright forecast, i'll be slaving over the keyboard writing and i really should finish sorting out Foxy ready for my slightly deferred birthday trip in three weeks time.

That's it for today, more at the weekend,
Tschuss,
Madeline Anafrid