October 14th, I had a morning in Windsor to spend before meeting with my parents to begin the family portion of my trip. I wandered down to the river, and crossed over to walk around Eton College. The river was great that morning. Sun was breaking through the clouds, and a diving Great Crested Grebe was surfacing between dives.
I headed off to wander through the historic college, before returning to the river banks. My lucky timing continued, I arrived at the pier just in time to hop on a scenic river cruise. Boats make great mobile blinds, and I had a great view of a Gray Heron on the bank.
The Gray Heron is similar to our Great Blue Herons in size and overall coloring, but the lack of rust color and spotting are a few key differences.
On the return I got one perched shot of a Great Cormorant. Cormorants through and through, they act very similar to our Double-crested Cormorants, often perching and stretching their wings for long periods of time.
My cruise complete, I heade back to the hotel, met my folks a bit later and headed north to stay the night in Rugby. Yes, the home of the game of the same name. While wandering in the town before dinner we even visited the field with a small sign indicating that it was here where William Webb Ellis "first picked up the ball and ran with it". He became the father of Rugby, which in turn likely had a strong influence on American Football. Pretty cool place to visit, which was followed-up by a great dinner of mutton, and wrapped up the day nicely with a good pint or two.
