Fun and games at Dostill Lake.

Ever since I'd seen my first ever Short Eared Owl several days ago at Dostill Lake I was dead keen to go back and try to get some better shots but the recent damp gloomy weather had put me off going.So when the weather man on Saturday morning said it would get a bit brighter by mid morning I decided to shoot over there.

Knowing that Kath a fellow photographer was also keen to get some shots I persuaded her to join me and we met up in the car park at 11.15AM.As usual there was good and bad news.The bad was it was still very gloomy and any bright interludes were thin on the ground but the good news was that whilst still in the car park I spotted a SEO gliding down the side of the central bund.It then landed on a small tree so we raced down to the decking area in front of the centre to rattle off some shots.It was distant but who cares we had spotted one straight away.

It quite quickly flew off.

We then made what turned out to be a great decision.We decided to walk down the pathway next to the big bund on the western side,picked a spot about half way down and just waited for one to turn up.Quite quickly one landed on the bund about 60m away.

For the next hour and a half we had numerous views of two of them flying around.One even flew low over our heads but my shouting "It's only a Gull" didn't help us getting a decent close flight shot.Here are a few of the shots I took from this spot.

I'm not going to complain because we had some good views over a long period (pity it was so gloomy) but the peace and quiet was spectacularly shattered when this chap roared down the lake and everything flew off.

After all it is a water ski lake and the very young skier put on a tremendous show.