Seeing Double

It has been a much better week weatherwise with more sunshine and warmer temperatures. Tuesday afternoon promised sunshine and blue skies so I headed out to the coast again to the RSPB reserve at Marshside, Southport. The afternoon did indeed turn out to be beautiful with warm and very welcome sunshine.
The pool in front of Sandgrounders Hide at Marshside on an afternoon such as this turns out to be a wonderful place to be with the big lens as there are usually a number of birds present very close to the hide and the light in the late afternoon and early evening gives perfect conditions for some wonderful images to be obtained. As expected there were some nice birds present mainly avocets, godwits and dunlin.
The still and sunny conditions gave some great opportunities for mirror images of the birds reflected in the water and I have shown this effect above with my images of the dunlin and shelduck. Black Headed Gulls and avocets were also paired up and the gulls were caught in the act of mating. I have rounded of the selection above with a portrait of a swallow which obligingly perched on a fence post close to the hide. It was a super session with excellent conditions and birds and I may post more from the day at a later date.