Sunday June 10

Following a hiatus caused by an ongoing family crisis, it was a relief to get down to the patch again. A cloudy morning meant that insects were hard to spot, but once seen, easy to photograph. Later in the morning the sun broke through and the temperature rose.

This is a hopeless time of the year for finding unusual birds, but Dave and I did see a Red Kite and hear a Reed Warbler. A single drake Teal remains on the flash field, and it appears that two Lapwing broods have fledged. Both Canada and Greylag Geese have goslings.

Red Kite

In just two weeks the grass has shot up, and new butterflies are now on the wing.

Large Skipper

Speckled Wood

Meadow Brown

As well as several of all the above, we saw one Common Blue, and about 20 Small Heaths. Since getting myself a garden moth trap I have become interested in the day-flying moths here. I didn't trouble myself with the grass moths but noticed many Timothy Tortrixes (another micro) and several macro moths.

Timothy Tortrix

Blood-vein

Cinnabar

Silver Y

Straw Dot

As for dragonflies, there were several new species on the wing while some of those already seen this year posed nicely. The Darters are in immature colours at this time of year which makes them tricky to identify. The first one shown below has black legs, while the second shows a moustachial droop on either side of the frons. These are features I associate with Ruddy Darter.

Ruddy Darter

Ruddy Darter

Both demoiselle damselflies were on show, and also both Broad-bodied and Four-spotted Chasers.

Beautiful Demoiselle

Banded Demoiselle

Broad-bodied Chaser

Four-spotted Chaser

The last of these was photographed in sunshine at the dragonfly ponds. The warmer late morning meant that none of the four Emperors settled long enough for me to get a decent shot. Instead I had to settle for the ever obliging Emerald Damselflies to round the visit off.

Emerald Damselfly

We also saw a hatch of tiny Toads, one or two young crickets, plenty of biting flies, and an interesting looking insect which I have not seen before and cannot identify.

Some kind of caddisfly perhaps