Avian Jewels

Such a stunningly beautiful day where garden renovations are now left aside in favour of trips to Sychnant and neighbourhood socialising. 

Blessed with beautiful locations relatively close to home, it’s sometimes difficult to say which is my favourite, but Sychnant always comes high on my list - a place to sit and contemplate, just breathing in the restorative air. The others head off on a circular walk, leaving me to my thoughts - and my photography. 

Often last year I came up here attempting to capture swifts and swallows swooping over the lake, with no success. This year, they’re already present, and today these avian jewels  put on a show of aerial acrobatics carried out at lightning speeds. 

As always, most of my shots are blurs of movement, or empty spaces where a bird once was, but there’s a few where the iridescent blue of feathers shines with relative clarity, often reflected by tiny flashes of blue damselflies across the water. 

Back home, we have an invitation to an afternoon of feasting in our neighbours’ garden, their huge table almost groaning with Terry’s culinary spread. It’s a delicious time of eating, drinking and conviviality, chatter and laughter ringing out across the garden. 

It’s been a wonderful weekend, and as we wave goodbye to Daniel and Solveig who join the North Wales exodus along the slow-moving A55, I’m happy to have done so much, but now exhausted, I’m ready for an early night.