This picture shows the Dartmoor pool that I have been watching for the last few days. As I said in a previous post, I watched this pool regularly last July, it's a beautiful spot and although the birds are not particularly prolific, it's quality not quantity. Take yesterday for example. I got myself concealed in a ditch right next to the water, only a few inches deep, the water comes in from a stream and opens out to the pool, (about the size of an average garden pond), and then tumbles over some attractive boulders that look as though they have been placed by a garden designer.

Young Grey Wagtail – Motacilla cinerea on the boulders at the end of the pool.

This is why this little pool is such a good place for photography, any birds that perch on the boulders are reflected in the water and I have got to the stage in my photography where I am looking for something a bit special, rather than a the same 'tired portrait". So after lying in wait for much more than an hour, and nothing to show for it, I was pleased when suddenly a Swallow splashed in to the pool just 3 feet in front of me. When the excitement had subsided, I planned how I could get some shots when they came back. I adjusted the camera for the fastest shutter speed possible, given the light, and then I adjusted the zoom lens so that I could capture more of the pool.  When they flew in again, they reminded me of fighter planes on a mission, I tried to capture the moment they splashed in…….. or just before, by predicting where they would be. It was hard to predict, but eventually I managed just one, almost successful shot. Anyway, it was almost good enough to inspire me to try for more. So I returned this morning to try again, the weather forecast talked of a wet afternoon so by mid morning I was back again, in the ditch and waiting!  The first thing that happened was the reason I was there in the first place, a spanking, pristine male linnet landed feet away but not in front of the camera.  Just the slightest movement of the camera towards it was enough to "spook" it and off he flew….. I had been sussed!