The longest day (Part two)

I returned to Netherstead by 10.30am, and immediately noticed a difference. The sun was now beating down, and the patch seemed much quieter. I had a mental shopping list of birds I had not seen this morning, but it took a while before the first of these, Lesser Black-backed Gull, made its presence known. On reaching the pool I found I could see Mike Inskip in the distance. He joined me to look at the Whinchats, and then casually dropped into the conversation that he had found some Red-eyed Damselflies in the corner of the main pool on Thursday.

This would be a new species for the patch so we made our way to the poolside and quickly found them. But they didn't look right to me. I remembered that the third segment from the end of the abdomen should be wholly black in Red-eyed, but on these insects that segment was layered with the upper half black and the lower half pale blue. Surely this was a feature of Small Red-eyed Damselfly, a recent colonist of southern Britain, and a species I had never seen. We discussed my thoughts, but Mike remembered that they should show a black cross on the last segment, and we couldn't see that. I resolved to check the reference books at lunchtime, and our attention was diverted by the sight of a young Peregrine circling overhead.

Mike showed me some Midland Hawthorn, a species with different shaped leaves from normal Hawthorn. I wish I knew more about plants. Last weekend Lyn and I had examined some species we didn't know, and had identified them as Wild Marjoram and Black Medick. Mike's friend Roger Maskew, is close to publishing his 25 year project on the plants of Worcestershire. Perhaps it will inspire me to try harder.

At the flashes we saw the Wood Sandpiper, and counted 12 Green Sandpipers. The hedge beyond contained a male Redstart, and after we parted I found another one a little further along. What was to be my last species of the day was a Tree Sparrow chirruping from the Gropper hedge beyond the dragonfly pools.

Lunchtime at home produced some Long-tailed Tits, I could find none at Morton Bagot today, and confirmation that the damselflies had been Small Red-eyed Damselflies. I rang Mike and returned to the pool with my camera. I will try to upload an image from work because my difficulties seem to be related to my network provider and not to Blogspot. Mike reappeared and agreed with the new identification, we even managed to see the black cross on the last segment of the abdomen of one of the insects. You clearly need to be standing right above them to see this feature properly.We reckoned there were at least 20 present in one corner of the pool alone.

One of the Small Red-eyed Damselflies

The day ended at 17.30, and a slightly disappointing tally of 57 bird species. The Kingfisher had taken my patch year list to 107, and it had been a pretty memorable visit.