The pink had gone from the sky and the sun was a half-circle as I walked up to Thrupp Lake this morning.

The sun cast a reflection on the water. Birds mounted from a tree root island and then settled back down.

Swans and geese came over to check whether I was the sort of human that brought them food and then decided I was a dead loss and drifted off again chewing water weeds instead.

I walked round to the other side of the lake; the camera started showing Err-20 and so I took the battery out for a few seconds to fix the problem. Two black-headed gulls were socialising on a fence and flew away as I approached. A cormorant or gannet or something dartlike flew over the lake but the camera would not focus and it joined other large dark birds in a feathery tree by the far bank.

Two Canada geese drifted over towards the reeds.

Then around by the little beach, by the main entrance, I started to see quite a few tufted ducks and a couple of grebes.

On the road by Thrupp Lake, I saw a man putting together a Jodrell Bank style camera with a huge tripod. I then walked around by the more out of the way lakes. There were three Muntjac deer on the far bank. As I left I saw the man with the large camera. He probably got much clearer images, if he even bothered with Muntjac – could have been after something far more exotic.