Thursday 14 February 2019

We Started The Day With A Walk,

to what was once Beckenham Police station,


 but has now been converted to a restaurant,

 the Junction,

 one of the newer restaurants in town, 

 we were here for lunch,

 apparently it is now under a second owner,

 we were meeting Helen and one of her daughters Nikki, who had both helped us so much on our move to the UK,

chicken satays for Diana,

 we all had starters, salmon, prawns and avocado for myself,

 on to our mains,  

 for myself a pork belly with a huge piece of crackling, 

 followed by,

 an enormous strawberry delight, what a lovely meal, after saying our goodbyes, 

 we walked to Kelsey Park, it was squirrel feeding time!

 the River Beck that flows through the park,

 as soon as we walked in, we were greeted by a Mandarin duck, (Aix galericulata), the male above,

  and the slightly planer female,

the happy couple,

 we started our walk,  

 feeding the ducks with peanuts as we went, 

 we nearly had the park to ourselves,

 a couple of cygnets, I am guessing from last year as they still seem to have their grey juvenile feathers in some places, 

 we had not seen these here before,

 and there were lots of them, 

 I am guessing our own native greylag goose, there are various named 'breeds' of domestic goose but all have descended from either Greylag Goose (Anser anser), or Swan Goose (Anser cygnoides), or both, unlike their wild ancestors many are wholly or partially white,

 we continued our walk,

 as a couple walked towards us looking for food,

 crossing the bridge, the view along the lake,

 the first of the squirrels makes an appearance, 

 they are remarkably tame,

 not even going back to the safety of the bushes or trees to finnish it's snack, 

 he was soon back for more,

 a short walk further on and Diana found another one,

 and another,

 in the next bay some peanuts for the waterbirds, 

 the sun was starting to set, 

 past heron island, one in the trees, 

 and another six or so on their nests in the trees, 

 looking across the lake,

 and towards,

 heron island,

 we saw this little chap again, there only seems to be one of them, and it is constantly diving, I wish I knew what it was, arriving home after our evening meal it was feet up for a few quiz shows, a couple from Murdock and a couple from the Poirot box and we were off to bed.


No comments: