The Spinnies, Aber Ogwen, Bangor 02 Nov 2019

After talking to a few people at the reserve on how active the kingies currently seem to be, and overwhelmed after the previous days visit to The Spinnies, I thought I'd try my luck and see if I could snap away at more kingies.

Remember, nature is never on parade....

I went in to the wooden hide, a little more prepared, my camera was out of the bag with the Sigma lens on!

The first photo isn't cropped, but the remaining ones are according to clarity....

As soon as I got in the hide, a heron swooped in and down, almost as though it had it prey in view, and without further ado, straight in to the reeds....

[Lunch beautiful lunch....] "I've got my eyes on you...."

In we go.....

"I've got myself a whopper here...."

At this stage, I could quite see what the heron had caught, but it seemed to have a battle on it's hands, or should I say beak!

I suspected an eel, but wasn't convinced until talking to someone later on, who confirmed they had eels in the pond.

It wriggle and writhed, and the heron tussled with the eel for quite some time before finally taking flight, with its whopper of lunch....

Even after taking flight, the eel still wriggled and writhed!

Well, no kingie, but certainly a good showdown between the heron and eel.

I did venture around to the main hide, just on the off chance, though the view was very quiet. Undaunted, I took to looking across Aber Ogwen out of curiosity, and the next photos show the view I had.

The fortified tower in the top left corner is Penrhyn Castle, a National Trust property.

And across the Menai, Beaumaris.

Another fabulous day, and yes, I will return.

I don't quite recall who mentioned the reserve to me, but thank for, whoever it was....