So we've now reached the longest day and Summer has now arrived. I was away last week and busy for the first half of this week though I've now managed a few trips down to check out the Patch. The floods are of course all dried up now and it's amazing how quickly the grass is reclaiming the dried up mud. In Burgess Field it's finally looking like June now with the Cow Parsley all gone and the May flower gone over as well. The grass is now looking very tall and lush. It's very much a case of the June doldrums on the bird front though if you look carefully there's always something of interest to see.
The Burgess Field grasses are looking wonderfully tall
There has not been much to report whilst I was away apart from a couple of OYSTERCATCHER sightings (thanks to Jodie Southgate and Ian Curtis for those). Liam Langley found a skulking Reed Warbler singing away by the southern entrance gate to Burgess Field - a rather unusual location for this species. Talking of Reed Warblers, I watched an adult bird busy feeding a full grown fledgling in the reed bed at the Trap Grounds. There, I also found the first Damselflies of the year with several Red-eyed Damselflies and one Common.
In Burgess Field the only butterflies I can find are still Small Heaths with no sign of any Skippers yet though I did see a Speckled Wood and I saw a Comma in my garden. A HOBBY making a half-hearted attempt to catch the House Martins by the Aristotle Lane railway footbridge was the only other bird sighting of note.
Red-eyed Damselfly - as well as the red eyes, the fact that the last two tail
segments are blue distinguishes this from the Blue-tailed Damselfly
In Burgess Field the only butterflies I can find are still Small Heaths with no sign of any Skippers yet though I did see a Speckled Wood and I saw a Comma in my garden. A HOBBY making a half-hearted attempt to catch the House Martins by the Aristotle Lane railway footbridge was the only other bird sighting of note.
Marbled Orchard Tortix caught in the garden moth trap
On my last posting Midlands Birder posted a comment about the neck of the flying white birds that I saw and he is of course correct that Egrets hold their necks in an S shape whereas Spoonbills hold them out straight. Thinking about it I'm pretty sure that the necks were straight which makes me even more certain that they were Spoonbills.
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