Amwell visit

A visit to Amwell Reserve yesterday afternoon, primarily for dragons and damsels. Beforehand, I did a quick check round the garden, finding a painted lady, a worn specimen, on the buddleia and a coal tit feeding in the bird cherry tree.

painted lady

coal tit

coal tit

Upon arriving at Amwell, I spent time at the viewing point but nothing unusual appeared to be present. lapwings, cormorant, mallards, coots, moorhens, lesser black backed and black headed gulls, common terns, a few pochard, little egrets, grey heron and a reed warbler were noted before a walk to check the buddleia along the old railway track. Chiffchaffs called and a bullfinch was heard but the only insect life here was a common blue damselfly and a common blue butterfly.From the bridge over the original River Lee small tortoiseshells and 2 red admirals were noted whilst on the lilypads a solitary small red eyed damselfly was seen, amongst the many common blues and occasional blue tailed damsels. Also, over, a brown hawker.

common blue damselfly

blue tailed damselfly

small red eyed damsel and common blue

A red kite and buzzard were noted over Easneye Woods and a sparrowhawk managed to put all the gulls and lapwings into the air.
A few canada geese and some greylags arrived noisily, before settling and, towards the island, aa single great creted grebe.

greylag and juvenile

greylag

mute swan

view from the Viewing Point

Common terns were still feeding noisy juveniles, although they appeared to be capable of fishing themselves. Also, an emperor dragonfly was noted, roosting near the gate to the dragonfly walk, where I bumped into fellow birder, Darren. At this point, heavy rain fell for a few minutes, making sure all insect movement ceased.

sparrow hawk

emperor dragonfly

unidentified hoverfly

common tern

common tern

Finally, cormorant, in full post breeding moult arrived at the viewpoint. It was in quite a state.

moulting cormorant

Later in the afternoon we had a superb rainbow over the garden and then an excellent full moon.