Dock..Duck..and Swan

Title sounds a bit like a pub name but it's a summary of my afternoon yesterday spent close to home. The weather this week has not been conducive to trips further afield and very strong winds and some heavy showers have kept me mostly catching up on jobs at home. However I did find time yesterday afternoon to visit Preston Dock where a number of common terns are nesting on pontoons in the former dock which is now an exclusive residential area . I had not been to see these terns before and it was a nice spot to set up the camera and await the action.
It was fun watching the terns,beautiful elegant birds and very graceful in flight. The terns have nested inside some tyres provided for them on the pontoons and it has proved to be very successful as this small colony has been there for a couple of years. Also nesting on one of the pontoons is a mute swan but it would appear that most of the eggs have been predated as only one egg remains from an original clutch of five eggs. Whether or not the remaining egg hatches is debatable but I hope it does.
After enjoying the session at the dock I travelled a few miles down the coast to where a drake garganey had recently turned up on the entrance pool to Newton Marsh. This handsome duck was still there but the light was not favourable to decent images and those shown above are published as record shots and maybe I can return when conditions are better and if the garganey remains. All in all it had been a very enjoyable couple of hours not far from home and I look forward to a return visit to see the terns feeding young in a couple of weeks or so.