About Views From an Urban Lake
Views From an Urban Lake Started out as a wildlife blog focused on a small Milton Keynes lake (Lodge Lake), before in 2014 moving to cover The Floodplain Forest Nature Reserve (formerly Manor Farm) in the Wolverton area of Milton Keynes. It has since expanded into an Outdoor Blog all about our family adventures in the great outdoors.
We still cover The Floodplain Forest Nature reserve on a regular basis, as it is a walk that is our most frequent, but we have added more posts about Walking (all around but especially walking in Milton Keynes), Geocaching, and Camping, to our range of subjects. As well as continuing our Reviews on anything Outdoors related.
If it is done outdoors, and doesn’t involve shooting, we will likely cover it somewhere.
That vast majority of posts will cover nature in some aspect still, and are almost all written by Ashley Beolens, whose lifelong love of the natural world generally comes across in the writing and superb photographs. Many of the walks are Just Ashley but a good number do include other family members. Each member is profiled below.
Ashley Beolens |
My name is Ashley Beolens and I am the main author on Views From an Urban Lake, I have been a birdwatcher my whole life (some 40 years), with a father like mine (Bo Beolens AKA the Fatbirder) it was always likely, but with my twitching days long gone (Yes I did a bit, but no I don’t miss it) I have found myself more interested in my local patch – The Floodplain Forest Nature Reserve. And I am not totally focused on birds any more either, I love Dragonflies, Moths are a huge passion, Butterflies and other insects also interest me, basically if it walks, swims or flies in the wild I want to see it.
My second big love is photography (Actually I started to get into photography because I couldn’t draw the birds I was seeing well enough, I always dreamt of having one of those notebooks filled with stunning drawings of the wildlife I had seen, instead I have lots of lists, a computer full of photos and this blog) and so most of my postings will be full of the photos I take around the patch, mainly the bird and insect life, but also a few landscapes (although I struggle with good ones of those) and probably quite a few of my kids/family.
Generally I love being outdoors, I prefer it to sitting inside most of the time, and would rather be out in the fresh air, come rain or shine, than dossing on the sofa watching TV.
I have 3 kids (as mentioned) and a family I love, and that is about as personal as I’m going to get.
I hope you enjoy the site, my posts and my photos, please comment on anything you want, I love to receive the feedback.
Family
Zoe: Zoe is my fiance and love of my life, we live together and have one child Bo, she has a little interest in the birds etc but not as strong an interest as other family members, yet. She enjoys the walks and time with the kids, and she LOVES Geocaching.
Owen: No. 1 son. My first born and a teenager, and boy do we know it. He hardly ever leaves his room and spends much of his time “gaming”. Once in a while he’ll come join us.
Toby: No. 2 Son. The middle child. Tubs is a caring, bright young lad who loves nature but doesn’t get involved much. Although he is the more likely of the boys to come out with us. He really likes getting to use my camera gear, and seems like a natural.
Bo: The angel of her daddies eyes. My baby girl loves nature, and bugs, and is the person found most often with me on my walks. She loves all wildlife especially birds and bugs (there are photos of her with Hawk moths on my moth blog). And is taking an interest in photographing nature too.
The Kids |
Reviews:
My kids and I are always happy to review anything wildlife or outdoors related. Be they aimed at adults or children. If you are interested in us reviewing something for you please contact us via email: ashley.beolens@viewsfromanurbanlake.co.uk .
Leave a comment here, or on Facebook and I’d be happy to talk to you. Reviews I/we have written can be found on the Wildlife and Outdoors Reviews page.
Contact
For contact information visit the Views From An Urban Lake Contact Page