Often with nature you just have to be in the right place at the right time. At the weekend my partner walked along the canal and saw his first kingfisher. Apparently it was a very good view as it flew down the canal and you could see the flash of blue for quite a long way. Now I'm itching to get back onto the canal to see if I can spot it too, although I'm not really any more likely to see one now than the other times I've visited.
The unpredictability of nature is part of it's charm. You can go to the same patch week after week and with the changing seasons and different weather (recently its more like the different forms of rain!) every trip will be unique. There will always be the familiar regulars (for the canal mallards, coots and sparrows) but also chance encounters with the less well known or less common (long tailed tits, swans and goldfinches). Then occasionally you have the real show stoppers, sometimes because of their bright colours (kingfishers) but often just because it's so out of place on a visit (waxwings and buzzards). I guess that's one of the reasons people get hooked on wildlife watching, every trips different and there's always a hope that this visit will bring the new species and the best view of a kingfisher. You have to keep watching to be in for a chance, and just resign yourself to the much more common response of "oh if only you'd been here ten minute earlier, there was a...".
The unpredictability of nature is part of it's charm. You can go to the same patch week after week and with the changing seasons and different weather (recently its more like the different forms of rain!) every trip will be unique. There will always be the familiar regulars (for the canal mallards, coots and sparrows) but also chance encounters with the less well known or less common (long tailed tits, swans and goldfinches). Then occasionally you have the real show stoppers, sometimes because of their bright colours (kingfishers) but often just because it's so out of place on a visit (waxwings and buzzards). I guess that's one of the reasons people get hooked on wildlife watching, every trips different and there's always a hope that this visit will bring the new species and the best view of a kingfisher. You have to keep watching to be in for a chance, and just resign yourself to the much more common response of "oh if only you'd been here ten minute earlier, there was a...".
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