Monday 3 August 2015

There were clear blue skies early this morning, but by 07:00hrs it started to cloud over, leaving just glimpses of sunshine, plus a gusty wind.

I had a full patch walk today, recording 43 species, which although is about average overall, it is a bit disappointing for August, not one gull species flew over, which doesn't help!

I added a couple of the expected species to the August tally, the LONG TAILED TITS (51) showed up in the Scrubby Woods, over which a dozen HOUSE MARTINS (52) circled for a while. Three raptor species were seen, the KESTREL young with the female adult were active on the greenhouse roofs, a BUZZARD flew low over the Ashes Lane Fields, but the most enjoyable one was watching a HOBBY chasing the SWALLOWS on three different occasions, at least I presumed it to be the same bird  :-)

Not much else of note, 2 female MANDARIN DUCKS were on the main lake, a YELLOWHAMMER was giving an alarm call from the boundary hedgerow of the Greenhouse Grounds, I thought it may have youngsters there, but I couldn't see any. 3 SWIFTS flew through, the only other flyovers were a pair of GREYLAG GEESE.

Whilst in the Scrubby Woods, I had my usual Dragonfly hunt, finding the Brown Hawkers and Southern Hawkers, the latter species gave me just one photo opportunity, but it settled in a most awkward place, which placed it in half sunshine and half shade, so I couldn't get the images I wanted, these are good record shots anyway  :-)


Southern Hawker Male.


The top half was in shade, while the bottom was in strong sunshine, not easy to set the camera up for!


If I exposed for the shaded head, I over exposed the body  :-(



Hopefully i'll get another chance at this species  :-)

2 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Nice set Warren and a nice bit of camera work in the conditions. I wouldn't mind one attempt with this species!!

Warren Baker said...

Hi Marc,
I reckon I'll get another chance, it is so time consuming waiting for the buggers to sit just where you want then too though!! LoL