Captured by the Camera - The Iron Birds fly off into the Sunset

The Iron Birds at College Lake

College Lake is a large nature reserve, near Tring, which is on the site of a very large chalk quarry excavated in the second half of the 20th century as part  of a large cement works (now closed and demolished).

I have taken a large number of photographs of College Lake over the years (see here) but the reserve closes at 4 pm in the winter and 5 pm in the summer. This means that it is not open to the public at either sunrise or sunset. However last October the reserve remained open till 5 pm right up to the end of the month which meant that there were a few days after the clocks had changed the public had access until a few minutes after sunset.

I carefully worked out where the sun would set and several positions where - if the clouds were right - I should be able to get a view with the sun set reflected in the water - and on the four days I visited and waited there was no magnificent sunset. On the 25 October I positioned myself a one of the planned locations and while there was a bit of a glow it looked as if my time would be completely wasted.

Then I remembered the sculpture by the artist blacksmiths, Hammer & Tongs, which had been put up by the Visitors Centre the previous month and got in position just in time to take the above photograph. There may only have been a small area of sunlit clouds but it was enough for this shot.