A sunny morning at Oare. 27th January 07

It was a glorious sunny Saturday morning at Oare marshes in Kent. The grounds were still quite soggy from all the rains but the sun was shining and we were off for a nice long walk.

The wind was however quite brisk and the air had a winters chill to it. Hands in pockets were certainly the order of the day to stop fingers from turning numb in the cold

Mick went one better and really made me laugh when he dressed like Scott of the Artic. Still it kept his head and ears nice and warm so he was quite happy.

We stopped by the stream and watched a Coot diving for food. We have noticed that when the Coots dive, they always pull up large beakfull’s of weed

If you look closely you will notice that they seem to swallow the weed then regurgitate it. We did a bit of research on this and it appears that the coots eat the seeds and small insects that are attached to the weed, not the weed itself

We walked on, following the pathway. The scenery was so peaceful with nice yachts moored nearby, bobbing serenely up and down with the water lapping gently against their sides

But what’s this! Is that a car stranded down in the River, Mick asked. It certainly sems like it. Maybe the high winds we had last week were worse here by the River

But No. it was just and illusion. The car was parked on the slipway whilst its owner was aboard his boat. It was not apparent the slipway was hidden in a depression

There were some signs of real wind damage though. This small boat was damaged very badly and from the broken ropes, appears to have been pulled from its moorings and smashed against the rocks during the winds

We continued on our walk and came across a Little Egret fishing. We watched as he slowly waded along the shallow parts of the stream taking long slow steps so as not to disturb any nearby fish.

With a quick dart of his head, the Egret caught a fish and quickly ran off to devour his meal. If you click on this picture, you will get a better view of the fish he caught.

A loud cawing noise overhead alerted us to a Rook that was flying slowly past. His mean look, undulating wings and large beak making him look like a battleship of the skies

A more pleasant chirping was a little flock of Redshanks that took off and skimmed along the water in a tight formation before landing on a nearby mudbank

Our walk was nearly at an end. So with one last long look at the golden coloured marshlands we made our way back home

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

Steve & Mick