I'm suprised that I haven't heard a Cuckoo yet and I was hoping for either a Spotted Flycatcher or maybe a Hobby by now, but beggars can't be choosers...
And in any case I was richly rewarded today with a variety of birds and a staggering number of dragonflies and damselflies.
First, the bird life: all the usual suspects were in situ. 10 Mallards, 6 Tufted Ducks (4m 2F), a pair of Mute Swans, 2 Grey Herons, 4 Stock Dove, 5+ Chiffchaff and 4 or more Willow Warblers.
I had a bit of luck with photographing the latter. I could hear a Willow Warbler calling but couldn't see it. As I had my Iphone with me I was able to play the call of this bird back from my Birdguides "British Birds" app. It brought 3 curious birds out of the bushes and nicely into a photo-call. Cheating I know, but I was pleased with the photos:
Other notable birds seen: 6 Swallows, 4 Buzzards, 12 Lesser Black-backed Gulls the aforementioned Swifts, a House Martin and a Whitethroat.
I've probably overdone the Tufted Duck photos latley but couldn't resist this. I swear the little blighter was laughing at me:
And so to the non-bird life:
A Brown Hare of course! I don't think I've ever been here and not seen a hare. It makes me wonder if I have stumbled into some top secret government hare breeding programme! Some of them are huge as well. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? (One for the conspiracy theorists).
Now, I'm no expert on dragonflies but this place is teeming with them so I've been doing my best to learn about them. The titles on the photos below are my best guesses. If anyone knows differently I'd be glad to be corrected (click on photos to enlarge):
 |
| Common Blue Damselfly (female) |
 |
| Black Tailed Skimmer (immature) |
 |
| Beautiful Demoiselle (female) |
 |
| Large Red Damselfly (male) |
No comments:
Post a Comment