Friday May 22

I arrived at the same time as a drizzly shower, but once it had passed the conditions were ok for some surveying at the south end. This produced, rather irritatingly, a singing Willow Warbler audible from the road. Why irritating? Well on the bird race day I didn't bother to check out the south end because it never gets anything! We didn't record a Willow Warbler that day, and I think it very likely that it was present.

Back at the car I chucked the coat as it was showing signs of warming up. Still no Reed Warblers in residence, but I noticed that the Coot eggs have started to hatch on the little pond opposite the dragonfly pools.

Looks that only a mother could love

I had brought the sketch book this morning and was planning to target the Coot's near relative, Moorhen. After briefly seeing one at another pond, I connected at the flashes.

I found them quite tricky subjects as they were always on the move. I soon got tired of them and noticed that there was nothing new sharing the flash, just a pair of Redshanks, a pair of Little Ringed Plovers, and a few Lapwings and Coots.

With the weather now quite warm I noticed that about 30 corvids were jinking about, high in the sky, presumably catching insects in the same way Starlings do on warm summer afternoons. There were large numbers of flies at my level too, and it didn't take me too long to belatedly break my dragonfly duck.

Beautiful Demoiselle

A pretty good dragonfly (actually a damselfly) to get off the mark with. The Beautiful Demoiselle favours wooded streams, and there is one small part of brook which seems just right. I later saw another species of damselfly, but as it was a female type I wasn't able to identify it.

The final photo opportunity was provided by a Harlequin Ladybird.