Riverside Bliss

Lovely sunny walk ILR :o) Aww@ fluffy ducky! And Yep @ Sand Martin, and certainly more than a hint of Garganey about the duck :o)

Thanks for sharing

Thanks PB nice to get the Id’s right for a change. The weather was really hot I felt drained of any energy I had, just a tad too hot for me personally but mustn’t grumble, we complain when it’s raining or too cold and when we get a lovely sunny day we complain it’s too hot Lol

Nice to hear you had a lovely walk in the sunshine and brought us back some lovely photos, the sand martin is wonderful. As for female garganey v female mallard, I think it's a difficult one so will leave it to the experts; garganey are smaller than mallards and I know I got one wrong at my local reserve when a more "manky (do hate that word)" looking mallard had the eyestripe of a garganey !!

Thank you Hazel maybe a hybrid but either way it was nice to see her with her fluffy chicks

I wouldn't give up on garganey just yet ILR until the experts give their opinion as there are close similarities and I'm not 100% sure but as you say beautiful to see her with chicks. I'm sitting on the fence. LOL

Riverside walks are quitr magical at any time of the year. We are so lucky here in Ripon as we have three rivers to choose from. The main river is the Ure, which we can see from the room window, heads down to York but we also have the Skell and Laver both of which rise on the local moorland. This gives us a wide variety of habitats to look for wildlife, always something of interest to keep us busy. Thanks for posting your photos another interesting set.

Very well done on getting the sand Martin pics ILR..another lovely selection from the river...thanks for sharing ;-)

Thanks Hazel, Lol

Hello Pete I have never been to the skell or laver I assume these are small rivers that run into the Ouse. The Ure is a lovely river and you are so lucky to see it from your room window. Glad you liked the photos and your right it’s a magical time of the year,

Thanks Linda hope your back is getting better now, Yes it was a nice walk but very hot, too hot for comfort but worth the effort and fab to see the Sand martins another first, and the red admiral another first even though it’s a common butterfly I had no photo of one and yet another first the Garganey yet to be confirmed by the experts. So all in all a successful outing.