a week ago on wednesday at burnsal bridge

Okay, so this was quite a long time ago but my brother has been hogging the computer since and seeing as though he is currently out I can catch up with all that i have fallen behind with! so the only thing that actually needs posting is the fact that a week ago on Wednesday we went to Burnsal Bridge again for the second time this summer. And this time I brought a real glass fish tank and not the crummy plastic one!

still, first things first! we went for a walk. The first bird I saw was a collard dove which I took a photo of because it was perched so conveniently on a branch.

Since I had caught up with all the other sites specialities last time I was secretly hoping for a kingfisher today. I spotted another of the locals first with a female mandarin duck.

It was whilst I was photographing this that my brother came and told me that my family had found a kingfisher. I went back to try and get some photos. Surprise, surprise! it was on the wrong side of the river leaving me with small blue specs instead of kingfishers in my pictures.

I chased it all morning, up and down the same stretch of river, but id just didn't look like it was going to come to my side of the river for a photo. Look at the photo below and you would see that not coming to my side of the river was a very silly thing to do if your a kingfisher and to be far there were plenty of conveniently placed perches for it.

Then, whilst taking the above photo, It did! It came to my side of the river, about 5m to my left. Perhaps it was my sudden movement of surprise but either way the bird stayed there less than 1 minuet so I got what I got. luckily, for my camera, that ain't bad!

The photo below shows it belting off up river after that...

I continued to follow it but it decided that it wasn't going to give me a second chance but I followed it anyway, after kingfishers are arguably Britain's most stunning bird. I managed to gather quite a few crowds to view the bird and, as I was following it, Many people left feeling pretty pleased with themselves!

After lunch Me and my brother went fishing in our traditional Burnsal pastime. In order to not crack the fish tank, this time we kept the fish in the plastic fish tank and then brought it over to the glass tank to take the photos. see below the equipment that we used for the photos

We managed to bring in quite a haul of fish and I managed to get some great photos if I do say so myself!

Minnows with a bullhead. This time we managed to catch one of the big minnows that evaded us last time!

The minnows. The bottom photo is my favourite.

The bullheads.

There was a decided lack of large loaches in the river and the one we found seemed to be badly damaged. We caught two small ones but they were happy with their new home and as a result did not come to the front but stayed within the murk of the middle where the camera couldn't reach.

After this my mum and dad said they were going to stick around and as a result me and my brother decided to try and catch a crayfish for the tank as there was also a lack of them and a photo of them in the water is something that Had evaded me!

After about rock twenty we caught a real beauty which obediently allowed himself to be caught. sadly though he was less obedient when it came to photos as he would not stay still. I suppose though that he did have perfect reason and right to be scared but the less he moved, the sooner he would be out. eventually I managed to get a few that we acceptable

As you can see this was quite a day and well worth it!