Lake Garda - Herons and Swallows

My first post from Italy, at long last!

I've just had a friend from Edinburgh come up for a few days who left to Verona airport early this morning so, after waving her off at the bus stop, I took a short train trip to Peschiera, situated on the south-west corner of the idyllic Lake Garda. We had been there the day before for a walk and picnic, so I had already gotten a sense of the fantastic wildlife that I should find, not to mention the awesome landscapes. 

There was plenty to choose from - the grating 'honks' of great crested grebes courting their spouses, the reed warblers rattling in the reed-beds, the elusive water rails squealing quite literally like pigs, and the hundreds of swallows hawking for insects over the lake itself. 

It was just beyond Peschiera, at Lazise, where the swallows were closest to the shore, swooping among the docked boats. I didn't have my tripod with me to do any successful attempts at slow-shutter pan shots, so I mainly focussed on creating slightly under-exposed fast-shutter images - this one being my favourite with that gorgeous tail trailing behind. Below is my best attempt, in my opinion at least, of the slow shutter technique, although really I should bring my tripod next time if I have any hope of getting anything good. 

After a short while, a grey heron came along and within seconds caught a few minnows and a small eel. I set up camera on the heron and sure enough, barely a moment later, it caught a tiny fish and gobbled it down. Only had one attempt at this, but not too bad - and a lot more cooperative than the heron who I used to photograph at the London Wetland Centre back in 2005. 

It had a thing though of flying off to test new spots whenever it had caught something, so I had to follow it up and down the shore a few times. Most of my flight shots are worthy for the bin, but this one of it landing made me smile, as if the water was still a little too cold! 

That's all for now, but after the huge amount of fun I had this morning - including the unexpected joy at watching a singing cuckoo for a full half-hour in a sunny vineyard whilst eating chocolate ice-cream - I'm bound to go back in the next week! So stay tuned for more herons, swallows and perhaps a cuckoo or two...