Tuesday 22 May 2012

After the early low cloud cleared this morning, the day turned out warm and sunny for my afternoon patch stroll, and with temperatures in the 70s F I felt sure there would be some Damsels and Butterflies on the wing. I was only partially successful however, and found only Large Red Damselfly and an immature White Legged Damselfly ( I think! I was wrong, thanks Greenie for correctly Iding them as Common Blue immatures) On the Butterfly front it was not at all as good as I had supposed, with only Small and Green Veined Whites, plus male and female Orange Tips, as well as a Speckled Wood being found.
Immature Common Blue
Immature Common Blue Damselfly
Large Red Damselfly
Whilst trying to find Damsels and Butterflies in the tree nursery I kept an eye out for the bird life, but in the warmth of the afternoon little was showing, it was much the same as yesterday with GREEN WOODPECKER and WHITETHROAT the only real notables, plus a JAY flew over, no Swifts at all were seen in the sky, just the local SWALLOWS.

As yesterday I walked the Greenhouse Grounds, and sat at Migrant Alley watching the sky, but unlike yesterday there were no exciting surprises. The KESTREL showed up, hunting over the Greenhouse Grounds, and 4 BUZZARDS were at various heights over Migrant Alley, a SPARROWHAWK flew low over carrying its prey, and again a HOBBY was viewed well as it drifted over. Apart from that it was all pretty normal fare today, but boy was it good sitting out in that sunshine this afternoon !

Below are the leftover photo's from my blog folder, taken at the weekend at my garden Feeders  :-)
GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER
JACKDAW
Jackdaw

9 comments:

Greenie said...

Warren ,
I found things hard on the butterfly front today too .
Would suggest your first two damselflies are the female drab form of the Common Blue Damselfly .
Abdominal markings wrong for WLD , also immatures would show white legs as well as matures .

Warren Baker said...

Thanks for that Greenie - back to the books for me :-(

Pete Woodruff said...

Some good macro work on the Damselflies Warren.

Marc Heath said...

Like you Warren, looks like we have the insect bug again. Look forward to your sightings.

Marianne said...

Great to see a few damsels :) lovely shots of them too!

Rohrerbot said...

Details! Boy, I enjoy the Id part but sometimes it's a bit painful. Part 3 of your hummingbird challenge talks about one of the major difficulties of id'ing hummingbirds. Love the macros....I tried getting a dragonfly the other day. Everything was in focus except for the head!!! Ugh! The macro part can be difficult....also did the same thing as you...."cleaned" out some of my folder with unused pics for the blog:) I forget some of the shots I take sometimes....I think...oh I'll use that one later on....and then I forget about it:) Have a great Wednesday!

Jason K said...

Nice Damsel photos Warren. These immatures can be quite tricky at times mate

ShySongbird said...

Lovely to see the damsels Warren. I haven't seen any at all here and butterflies were in short supply too yesterday despite the perfect conditions!

Lovely garden photos too, I do think Jackdaws are very smart looking birds.

Alan Pavey said...

Great photos again Warren, hoping to find a few butterflies at the weekend :-)