It is always fun to have a wander down the Rio Chillar riverbed and there is quite a bit of water at the moment. Not Mississippi standard by any stretch of the imagination, but a fair amount and quite fast flowing in most parts.
One of the challenges is actually crossing the river, bridges being few and far between. Even when you do get across, you may not get very far before having to cross back again.
Stepping stones are one way, but at the moment not very practical due to the amount of water.
One mighty leap is a last resort, so on this occasion I decided to remove shoes, roll up the trousers and cross by one of the fords. It’s only a few inches deep but the constant flow of water has made the surface exceedingly slippery, almost impossible not to slide sideways at some point and very easy to end up with one’s posterior aloft.
Dozens of martins were flitting up and down the river the whole time in their search for food, occasionally touching the surface of the water. Tried getting shots of the martins but need to go back to the drawing board on that one!
I was about to try and take a picture of a giant dragonfly when a whole herd of martins swooped in from on high and that, as they say, was that.
Had better luck with stationary birds, though, albeit from a great distance.
Plenty of wild flowers along the riverbank.
Larger animal life consisted of a few dogs, quite a few horses including this mother and foal,
a very affectionate feral cat
and a lovely, friendly mule having a good old munch on sugar cane.
No shortage of bugs and other insect life, particularly flies at the moment.
