Dragons and Juv Yellow-legged Gull

Had a cracking afternoon at Lower Bruckland Ponds today, so many dragonflies and damselflies about. 

At least 310 Small Red-eyed Damselflies were spread across the whole site, which is easily my highest count here and probably the highest count ever here.  The true number is probably well over this to be honest as 90% of these were males, so I wouldn't bet against 500 actually being present.

Male and an ovipositing pair of Small Red-eyed Damselflies

My personal highlight were a couple of Ruddy Darters, including this stunning adult male. The best one I've seen on patch for many years...

Ruddy Darter showing all the diagnostic features

Ruddy Darter - the abdomen is not only pinched in when viewing from above

A couple of Golden-ringed Dragonflies were also good to see, in the same spot that I always see one or two when I visit the Ponds...

Golden-ringed Dragonfly

Golden-ringed Dragonfly - the pinched in abdomen and bulbous rear end makes this a male

There were clear signs of passerine autumn migration too, with plenty of hirundines feeding low over the Ponds before flying on west along with a few Swifts...

And now for a proper bird....  First juvenile Yellow-legged Gull of the year on the Estuary on Tuesday evening. It was almost dark when I saw it but the occasion certainly warranted a record shot...

Beaut!

A nice chunky long-winged beast, and in full juvenile plumage. I love the early ones they always look the best in my opinion, and hopefully this is the first of many...

Finding Emerald

I enjoyed another mid afternoon wander around Lower Bruckland Ponds today looking for dragonflies and butterflies. Was really hoping to bump into the Lesser Emperor again but no luck with that, although I did have some luck as I found my first patch, and I think the first patch, Emerald Damselfly. 

It's a very widespread species, just not one we get here. And as I haven't seen one for a number of years I had forgotten just how beautiful they are. It's body was just like the colour (iridescence included) of a Demoiselle, with a surprising amount of blue on the side of its thorax and head, a delicately slightly pinched in abdomen and amazing tear-dropped shaped wings. Such a beautiful insect. I just wish it hadn't flown off just as my camera was focusing on it! I will certainly drop in there again this week in case it sticks around, I would love to get a pic.

It seems to be the best year for a long time for Small Red-eyed Damselflies here. I'm sure that's simply down to much fewer dabbling ducks on site, resulting in far more surface vegetation...

I also saw my first two Southern Hawkers of the year, along with two Golden-ringed Dragonflies...

There was nothing unusual among the as ever excellent numbers of butterflies, but here's another underwing shot for you, and today it's a Red Admiral...

And now to birds. Well since my last blog post I have managed to miss two patch Great White Egrets. This morning Ian Mc had one fly in off the sea and appear to land on the beach (although there was no further sign), and three days ago one appeared on BirdGuides for Seaton Marshes just after midday, but no one saw that one again either.  They can be ever so slippery for such large white birds!

Waders continue to move through slowly. On Thursday 13th I had a Greenshank, six Dunlin, one  Whimbrel and 76 Curlew (a big sudden increase) on the Estuary. Tonight there were at least three Whimbrel present along with a decent scattering of Common Sandpipers. The water levels are looking better on Black Hole Marsh again now so expect more sightings from here in the coming days and weeks.  Med Gull passage seems to have slowed down a bit on the Estuary, although they are still trickling past offshore, with four flying in from the south west on Thursday morning.

A walk around the wetlands yesterday morning didn't show much in the way of water birds, but overhead it was wonderful to watch a flock of about 50 screaming Swifts feeding. Whilst watching them I realised that within a matter of weeks they will all be gone, so I decided to watch them some more...

A Hobby zipped through south and in the bushes two Willow Warblers made their presence known by calling. It was great to hear that call again, although on the other hand it's a bit sad when you notice just how little bird song there is now, in the last couple of weeks it has really quietened down.  Proper autumn is looming...

Small Red-eyes and Colour-ringed Med Gull

I never did get round to posting these few dragonfly pics last week, so here you go...

It was great to see Small Red-eyed Damselflies out again at Lower Bruckland Ponds last week, I saw them on four of the ponds - basically where ever there's surface vegetation (whether it's lily pads or algae/weeds)...

Also this lovely Golden-ringed Dragonfly, one of my favourites...

As always Camille Duponcheel has replied in ultra quick time regarding the colour-ringed first-summer Med Gull pictured in my last post, Green RU15.  It was ringed as a pullus last June in a colony at Barbâtre, Polder de Sebastopol, Vendée, FRANCE - which is here:

After fledging it spent autumn and the first half of winter in Cornwall, mostly on the Camel and Hayle Estuary, but it then flew back over the channel and was in Northern France by Feb of this year. It returned to the Hayle in late April and this was the last sighting before I saw it on Black Hole Marsh last week. Many thanks Camille.

A Week's Worth Of Witterings

Thought it was about time I wrote a blog post! I've certainly got a fair bit to write about, so I'll try and keep it brief and put in plenty of pretty pictures.

To start with, let's rewind a week to Bank Holiday Monday. Just before Jess and I were heading out for the day I received a phone call from Sue Smith who thought she had a Black Tern on Black Hole Marsh. I was there in a shot (half way through shaving!). Thankfully the Tern remained, although only just - it flew off north about a minute after I arrived!  It looked quite a pale one to me, and I don't remember ever seeing a juv Black Terns with a pale brown mantle (they've always appeared dark to me), but it was just a Black Tern. Not that that's a bad thing though as they're really scarce on patch - so a very welcome patch year tick. See pics HERE and HERE.

So I headed off to Sherbourne for the day a happy chappy. And totally unrelated to anything else on this post, look what we saw...

 

A gold post box!

And if you can't remember why there's these gold post boxes around...

I saw him win this medal....on telly. Well done Peter!

The following day saw me rushing down to Black Hole Marsh again, this time for a juv Little Gull seen from the Tower Hide. Sadly I was about five minutes too late despite my fastest sprint from the car park to the hide!  Oh well, you win some you loose some. I did see a juv Cuckoo though, and am sure it is a second bird as to me it seemed a lot more rufous than the the first bird (which hadn't been seen for at least a week before).

I didn't have much birdie time last week, but when I did (except for the Tern and Gull twitch) I went in search of autumn passerine migrants, hoping for a rare warbler, Ortolan or Wryneck. Sadly none of these materialised with my best find being a juv Osprey over Beer Head on Wednesday 28th. I first picked it up just offshore after the gulls went up from the camp site, then it came in and flew west right over our heads - luckily Karen and Ian weren't far away. 

My first of the autumn

Also on Beer Head on Wednesday morning were: 35 Yellow Wags, 26 Wheatear, 5 Chiffchaff, 2 Willow Warbler and singles of Grey Wag, Tree Pipit and Whinchat.  Despite these fairly good counts, they all felt like lingering migrants from the weekend/bank holiday fall.

There's a Whinchat in the lower pic

Thursday morning I thought I'd give Axe Cliff it's first visit of the autumn. No good to be honest as they haven't cut the crop yet so Ortolan potential = zero! Still, I had three Tree Pipits and a Yellow Wag over and a few Wheatear and a Spotted Flycatcher on the deck, so it wasn't a total waste of time.

Saturday saw me give Black Hole Marsh a proper look for the first time for over a week! It was the first time I saw the 'Curlew Sandpiper show' with at least 15 juveniles scattered about amongst the Dunlin and Ringed Plover...

Some are coming stupidly close to the hide too!

 Also present were two Little Ringed Plovers, a Ruff and this juv Turnstone...

Taking time out from stone turning and having a bit of chill time!

This afternoon I gave Black Hole Marsh another look. On the marsh was a similar selection of birds to Saturday, but a trip to the Tower Hide was certainly worthwhile.  I thought I heard Spotted Redshank call shortly after I arrived, and soon spied two likely suspects roosting up river from the Tower Hide, both clearly juvs. I got everyone on to them (everyone who was interested anyway!) but we had to wait a little while until we saw some head and bill - they were clearly very sleepy!  The rising tide pushed them about which allowed me to get this superb flight shot...

You won't see any better flight shots than this!

They eventually moved on to Black Hole Marsh and mingled with the Blackwits and Redshank.

Just before my visit to Black Hole Marsh I had a look around Lower Bruckland Ponds. Whenever I go here I always spend a lot longer wandering around than I was planning too as there's always so much to see and photograph!  Best of all today were a couple of lovely male Ruddy Darters...

Check out that body shape! Is that what they call an hour glass figure!??

I don't think I normally see Golden-ringed Dragonflies this late in the year, but have seen plenty recently including this showing one at LBP today...

One of my favs these

Along with the expected Migrant Hawkers...

The dragonfly of the autumn

It's not just dragonflies that distract me here, because as always there were lots of butterflies too. The best being the second flight period of Dingy Skippers...

Dull but sweet!

American waders are turning up all over the place at the moment - so I know where I'm going to be doing most my birding over the next week....