Cambridgeshire day 5

Sadly, today was our last day in Cambridge. My mum and dad had decided to go and have a look at Angelsy Abbey national trust property. I can't say I was particularly optimistic about the potential for wildlife at this site. After packing up, we headed that way. It had a very modern visitor center, which probably would'nt fit with the actual property itself. I was however, quite relieved to learn that at the far end of the grounds there was a designated nature area with a hide, overlooking a small pond. Naturally, that was where I headed first. I got slightly lost, that being because there were not that many man made structures to locate myself with, but I made it to the nature area eventually. On the way there I had hoped to see something spectacular, but I had only seen a handful of mistle thrushes. I was gutted to learn that the nature area was actually more like a wooden sculpture park, but I stuck with it and went to the bird hide anyway. When I got there I was relieved to see that there were a number of bird feeders. I waited a bit, but there were not that many birds to see. Then a woodpecker flew in, and landed on the birdfeeder. The curious thing was that the feeder it landed on was not a woodpecker designed feeder, it would not be able to get any food from it. Or so I thought! As it happened it stuck its head in the top and then pushed its whole body into the bird feeder, from the top, like a squirrel, and then grabbed the food, and somehow managed to get out again. It was funny to watch, its behavior I have never seen before! The woodpecker left after his snack, and i was left watching the usual assortment of garden birds. However in front of the hide there were a few damselflies, including azure, common blue, blue tailed and a danded demoiselle, which is a beautiful creature, no matter how many you see. More birds flew in, long tailed tits, which added a little bit of variety to the assortment of birds that were there. -Long tailed tit After watching the long tailed tits for a while I started to look over the pond to see what was about. I spotted a couple of dragonflies, but one really caught my eye, it was bright blue-so that meant either skimmer or chaser. I tried to pick it up with the camera, but it was too quick, however through my bin's I worked out that it must be either black-tailed skimmer or broad bodied chaser. I didn't manage a photo, but I spotted on the far side of the pond, behind the island there was a decking platform, so I decided to make my way to it to see if I could get closer to the dragonflies. I wasn't too sure how to get to the platform, but made it eventually. From there I saw that there were three dragonflies on the pond at the same time. There was one Hairy dragonfly, that did not stay still at all, all day. so I thought i clear that up now, but It was good to see this dragonfly, which has probably been one of the highlights of the holiday. Then there was the blue chaser/ skimmer and then either a female of the latter or a juvenile of the latter but never at the same time. Whilst I was waiting for the dragonflies to land, I heard a tremendous noise above me and looked up to see a hawk, circling above me. It was probably the noise that made me think that it was a goshawk, but looking in the book at home it proved to be a sparrowhawk.

-sparrowhawk I finally spotted that the blue dragonflies had landed, but it was some way off. The easy way to tell between the two main suspects was that a black-tailed skimmer has a black tail, which this dragonfly did not have, and so it was therefore a broad bodied chaser, which is the first I have seen since i began to develop and interest in dragonflies. I wanted a photo of it but it was someway off, and I didn't really want to leave the decking. Either way it flew off, round the far side of the island, so I waited and as i waited another dragonfly approached me. It was, I though, a female broad bodied chaser, but actually it was a four spotted chaser, and it began ovipositing right in front of me, with was really interesting. I tried to get a photo,m just for the record. but most of them came out really poorly.

-four spotted chaser, and ovipositing in the bottom photo I was still waiting for the chaser to re-emerge when i received a text to go back for lunch. I was a bit disappointed, but I hoped that it would still be there on my return.

walking back to the car, I spotted a pheasant in the grassland, which was the first none garden bird I had seen all day. Interestingly, it was also a black pheasant which i think means that it has some form of caucasian in it.

-caucasian pheasant During lunch I asked my mum and ad if they had seen anything. My mum said that there was a grey wagtail on the river and my dad said that he had seen a dragonfly on the pond in the gardens. he said that it was a southern hawker, so I had to tell him that southern hawkers don't have this early a flight period, and that it was far more likely to be a hairy dragonfly.

After lunch I headed up that way to see what I could find. The river was not what I expected, It was completely covered in lillypads and hardly any movement in the water, so not really prime grey wagtail habitat. However, I did track down the bird in question, hunting from the lillypads.

-Grey wagtail At the other pond, I though that there was not enough vegetation for dragonflies, and I didn't see any. There were however quite a few damselflies mainly azure and blue tailed.

-Azure damselfly

walking back to the bird hide and platform I began to spot things in the grass. notably were that the Grass seemed to be writhing with voles and mice, not that I saw any, but they were everywhere because you could hear them squeaking and the grass rustling.

On the subject of things you could see, there were quite few butterflies such as this large skipper. -large skipper

there were also quite a few of these things (below) in the grass that look like small red underwings. Some kind of moth, that seemed to be everywhere.

-moth I eventually made it through the distractions to the pond and bird hide. Once more I spotted the chaser and was very relieved that it had not flown away. It also seemed to be landing more, on the side of the decking. I suddenly decided to just go for it, so I climbed over the fence and squelched my way to where it had been landing. It took a while and a lot of patience but eventually the insect started to land of the plants in front of, some kind of flower that was ready to seed, rather than flower. They were quite tall too which helped.

so below you can see an assortment of the photos I took of the broad bodied chaser.

-Broad bodied chaser so there we have it. i finally managed to get the shots I wanted of this spectacular insect. also the dragonfly I described as being a juvenile chaser was actually a female chaser. It was curious to see the hairy dragonfly, the four spotted chaser and the broad bodied chaser all getting into one fight. Hardly surprising considering the amount of water (not much) and the number of dragonflies hunting it. still, it was great to see.

whilst i had been waiting for the chaser i had spotted a kingfisher land in a willow tree, but i had not seen anything else aside from the dragonfly. I decided to explore the rest of the pond, there was a path through the pond, presumably for the staff to fill up the bird feeders. I walked along it to see what there was and I was rewarded by great views of a comma butterfly.

-comma I then got a text telling me to start heading back, so I had to leave. overall it had been a good day and as i was leaving i spotted another damselfly, a large red resting on an overhanging stick.

-large red damselfly On the way back I had to walk through the tall grassland where I had seen so many butterfly's on the way here. On the way back i spotted quite a few common blue butterfly's, just to round the day off.

-common blue butterfly I made it back to the car park without further distraction. however, in the car park I was able to watch a blackbird throwing itself at cars. I had never seen this behavior before, although i had heard about it. so it was interesting, but also slightly worrying as the bird seemed to be getting very into its attacks and it looked like it might get injured.

-Blackbird

so there we go. Our Cambridgeshire holiday was over, without oriole or bluethroat but with plenty of other stuff. Highlights? certainly the Stone curlew and the hobbys, and the dragonflies. the whole holiday could be called a highlight I suppose, except for the missing out on the obvious!