Lough Beg, County Derry

Immediately after breakfast I had a walk down the lane to have a closer look at the lough. It wasn't easy, it's rained an awful lot here recently and the ground is saturated and very boggy. Lough Beg lies just north of Lough Neagh and is basically a flood plain of the Lower Bann river which flows through it from Lough Neagh. It's an RSPB reserve, but not a particularly easy one to visit, being surrounded by private farmland.

The view of Church Island from my B&B at dawn.You can just see whooper swans through the trees.

The church on Church island is actually a folly, built by a past Lord to improve his view from the nearby country hall. In the summer you can walk out to it, but not today, the lough is as high as I've ever seen it.

Whooper swans, the star attraction. Sometimes there can be as many as 200 in the field outside my B&B, but today there were about 300 on the water, with thousands of ducks.