It’s Day 28 of 30 Days Wild and I tried something totally different today. We have a friend staying, so decided to do one of those things I’ve been meaning to do for the 10 years we’ve been living here. My friend and I took a waterbus from Upton on Severn down to Tewkesbury (and back obviously). The trip is just over an hour each way, with a couple of hours to explore Tewkesbury in the middle.

As usual with any of our trips I set out with certain expectations, some but not all of which came to fruition, but then we saw other things that were total surprises. My friend and I sat at the back of the boat so we could look out for the wildlife. This was when I realised that being too lazy to check your camera bag was not a good thing. I must have still been in insect mode this morning when I packed, so took a macro lens instead of something for far away birds. So apologies for the following set of blurry photos – I could blame the camera, but really it is the numpty who forgot to change the lens.

We’d joked that it would be great to see a kingfisher, but didn’t really expect one. So when my friend said she’d spotted one I thought she was joking! But it was real! So here’s a blurry wrong lens photo from a great distance (since I was so slow to react thinking she was having a laugh).

I could have gone home happy after that, but of course we were on a boat! Fortunately the wildlife kept on coming. Next up was a couple of herons.

Also great to see another member of the heron family – a Little Egret.

The river banks were lined with lots of willows drooping into the water decorously. Really nice to see lots of Yellow Water Lilies in flower along the edges where it was relatively slow flowing.

We also saw some Common Reed Mace when we got to the dock at Tewkesbury. Not sure I’d ever seen them close up like this.

We saw several birds of prey, a kestrel, sparrowhawk and a buzzard; the only one of which I managed to get even a rubbish photo of was the buzzard.

Shock bird of the day was a cuckoo! I’ve heard them before but never seen one, today we saw but didn’t hear it! If only I’d had the right lens on.

The day was completed with lunch in a really old pub in Tewkesbury – nice pie and a ploughmans.

It was a really relaxing way to spend the day, pootling down the River Severn (and up a bit of the River Avon), bit of bird watching and a pub lunch. Shame that most of today’s photos are blurry due to the lens issue, but it didn’t spoil the enjoyment at the time. We weren’t the only ones to enjoy it – my friend’s dog seems to have found her river legs. She was the star of the boat, everyone loved her and why wouldn’t they?