Merry Christmas from Steve & Mick

We hope that you had as nice a Christmas as we did. My wife Carole cooked the family a delicious roast dinner and my brother Mick came round to join in the feast. A few good glasses of wine were soon passed round and we all had an excellent celebration.

So today we decided to go out for some well needed exercise, so off we went for a walk at Oare Marshes. Mick wanted to try out his new fleece jumper that he got for Christmas and you can tell from his huge grin that he was snug and warm in it

The fleece was a present from our Mother, and like all good mums, she made sure that her other son had a nice warm fleece as well.

Unfortunately we did not bring our boots with us today which was a pity as the path around Oare Marshes was very muddy. It looked like a heard of cows had walked over it

And there, sitting in the sunshine was one of the likely culprits sitting quietly as if to state that it was not him, but if you look closely you can see that he is wearing a sly grin.

We therefore decided to walk along the roadway and see what we could find in the lakes. A young family of Teals swam over to wish us a pleasant Christmas before continuing about their business

And nearby a Shoveler gave us a recital of a famous duck Christmas Carol that he sang at the top of his voice.


A bit further on, we spotted a Mallard diving for food next to a small shrub of reeds. The reeds seem to be a popular feeding area so we guess that their food gets trapped down in the roots of the reeds.


Across the road from the lakes is another pathway to another lake, so we tried this one to see if it was less muddy. It was not as bad but still far to slippery for ordinary shoes so we just stayed on the outskirts. At first it seemed quite deserted but Mick spotted a rabbit watching us from a far off hill


We waited to see if he would come any closer to no avail. Just as we were turning to come back though, a pretty Stonechat landed next to us to say hello.


Unfortunately she could not stay long and flew off quite quickly, but her husband was not in a rush and he fluttered over to pose for our pictures


It was time for us to go so we walked back to the car. As we passed the lake we noticed that the Shoveler was still singing away and had found a nice little island to stand on



We hope that you enjoyed our walk. More pictures can be found in our galleries at www.voinapics.co.uk

Steve & Mick