Never let it be said that I am the most organised person on the planet. For successful wildlife photography there has to be quite a high level of organisation. Sometimes I prepare well but on other days my lack of organisation catches up with me. Today was just such a day. After my successes of the last couple of days today went stunningly wrong. I arrived at Moses gate country park on a cloudy but bright day late into the morning. Knowing that the battery in my camera was about to run out I swapped it for my spare only to discover that that too had very little charge on it. Wonderful. I would just have to try and limit my power as much as possible. My main aim in visiting the lodge was to photograph coots fighting but I had not accounted for one basic factor, the freezing weather. Nearly all the lodges were frozen and there were very few coots about.

Deciding to skip the lodge for a little while then, I went to the feeding station. Here where the usual hordes of greenfinches, chaffinches blue and great tits. There was also a single coal tit and a beautiful male bullfinch. Sadly at this feeding station there are no hatches, just a glass window so you cant take photographs. Any attempt to stand outside discretely usually fails and all the birds fly away. The kingfisher which also hangs around the trees near the hide as there is a little brook that he feeds in was missing today.

Back at the lodge was the usual group of non breeding mute swans, Canada geese, mallards and lots of tufted ducks. The tufties who are usually pretty tame kept their distance today. Then I noticed a pair of shoveler. These two birds have been on the lodge for quite a few weeks now and it was really nice to see them as they are quite a rarity in the area. Even more so as right in front of me close in they started doing their courtship dance. Beak to beak they swim round and round in everlasting circles. I began to take photos when the second of my batteries gave out and I was left with no more opportunities to take photographs. Cursing my inability to recharge my batteries properly I had no option but to go home

The day however was far from over and I was certainly not going to be outdone. I rushed home had a quick lunch whilst recharging one of my batteries and within the hour I was out again. However herein kicks lesson number two. Returning to a scene that was exciting and interesting one day/hour does not mean that it will be the next and my return to continue photographing the shovelers was to be in vain. I could see them doing their dance out in the middle of the lake and I was to be shooting straight into the sun. Totally hopeless. At one point the Canada geese started fighting and all hell broke lose for quite some time with about a dozen geese getting involved in the action. I tried and failed to photograph them cursing why my camera would not focus. Eventually when tempers had died down, including mine, did I discover that somehow my focus had been knocked off the centre spot. Something so simple yet so frustrating. The only advantage to going back was that someone let their dogs chase the swans and they took to the skies where I could practise my flight photography though in the end the results were nothing to get excited about. Oh well that’s the way it goes….