Visit to the heronry in Macclesfield forest - Tues 4th June 2013

What a beautiful evening it was:-)

Six of us met outside the Leather's Smithy pub at Langley and got our walking gear on, ready to go and see the herons.

 

Unlike previous years when Kate has taken us on this walk, we decided to visit the heronry first rather than at the end of the walk. This was because, when both Kate and Sue visited the heronry independently in the few days previously, we'd each noticed that the herons were more active earlier in the evening, so thought it best to visit them first this time.

On our way to the heronry, we passed a family of mandarin ducks swimming along the reservoir (above) and another family of ducks climbing the steps at the side of the wier (below).

Unfortunately Sue and Hazel missed this second family of ducks as they were too busy nattering to notice them!

We stopped at two different view points when we got into sight of the heronry. There were some Canadian geese around as well as a coot and a Great Crested Grebe but the highlight was seeing the herons in the trees and some youngsters in the nest (unfortunately the photo's of the chicks in the nest didn't come out - they just looked like blobs on a nest of twigs).

However we did get a fairly decent shot of a youngster in a tree (below) with a nest in the branches above him and another nest (the one where the young chicks were) over to the left of the photo.

We'd all taken binoculars (and were envious of Ian's because they were super-dooper massive!!) and were able to see the herons and chicks clearly. It was a wonderful sight:-)

Before moving off to walk through the forest and back to the pub for drinks and eats, Andy took a group photo of us (below).

I don't know about the others but, despite putting anti-mozzie spray on, they got me anyway!!!

Back at the Leather's Smithy, a couple of us had a meal whilst the rest  just had something to drink and left around 10pm.
Our thanks to Kate who led the walk on what was a thoroughly enjoyable evening!