Dumfries and Galloway Day 4

Day four was very sunny and so we decided to go and have a look at Glenwhan Gardens which was lovely the first time we went. The last time we were there we saw loads of Golden-Ringed Dragonflies, but we were too late in the season for them this time.
  As soon as we arrived I headed onto the "moors" bit, because I had not spent much time there last time, and that was where the dragonflies. The first pool was exactly how i remembered it, and looking in the grasses alongside it I spotted my damselfly of the day, which was a blue-tailed damselfly. 
-Common Blue Tailed Damselfly
further exploration found my first Emerald Damselfly of the holiday. It was the perfect habitat for them, so I was not very surprised. It was a female, and was resting on the sedge alongside the pool.

-Common Emerald Damselfly
After looking round the first lake I decided to look up on the higher ground to see what heath land birds were around. It did not take long before I found my first yellowhammer of the holiday, a stunning male hiding in a shrubby tree.

-Yellowhammer
and even further away from the pool I stumbled across a pair of siskins in a distant tree, so I was unable to get a good photo.

-Siskin 
There were many more ponds than I remembered, though the second one I found was not buzzing with wildlife, as the only thing I found on it was this male emerald damselfly

-Male Emerald Damselfly
Back up on the gravelly path near the entrance after my loop I began to see more things, I flushed a common hawker which made a speedy get-a-way, and also found a lovely wall brown butterfly resting on the path.

-Wall Brown
I went down another path which I had missed out to incorporate my loop, and found a smaller pond rather than a lake on my left hand side, with a much larger lake about 10 meters to the right. On the small pool were two common hawkers hunting, and I spotted on some bracken nearby a lovely male black darter, my first of the year, and one that was really easy to photograph. It looked lovely in the afternoon sunshine.

-Male Black Darter
There was also a toad on the path further down. After that I headed back to the mown area near the top, next to the main lake and entrance. Here I found a common darter sunbathing on a large flat rock. I flushed it and it moved off to some cut shrubbery. Here I could see that it was incredibly dark on the underside and on the frons. It would be a bit too south for a highland darter, making this a menalistic common darter. 

-Common Darter
In the same region as the "highland darter" I spotted a female black darter, which was a nice addition to the nice growing list of species for the gardens. it was very docile and therefore very easy to photograph.

-Female Black Darter 
So without doubt the best day of the holiday. We spent the afternoon in Stranraer and then went swimming in the afternoon, because it clouded up.

Dumfries and Galloway Day 3

 Day 3 was warm and sunny, but blustery, and so we decided to go the mull of Galloway. Once we had gone in, I headed straight to a watch point on the moors to do a bit of seawatching. Sadly, without binoculars, this proved difficult, though there were a handful of birds on the tops, such as meadow pipits and linnets

-Linnet
It was only really the large birds flying over the sea that I could identify with ease, such as the flocks of gannets, or the fulmars that were sat on the sea. Regular large flocks of gannets wandered past my watch point, some flying quite high.












-Gannets
But again, it was the birds on the moors that were the easiest to watch. I was joined by a couple of Wheatear that did come quite close, not that the photos show it, as they hunted for insects on the ridges.

-Female Wheatear  

-Male Wheatear
The watch point idea had worked well for the birds on the cliff tops but sadly had not worked as well for the birds on the sea. There had been fulmars and gannets, but sadly not much else. The only exception was a pair of guillemot that I managed to spot in the bad swell a long way off.

-Guillemots 
I decided to give up on the watch point and go for a walk around the cliffs, to see if there were any more cliff top birds or seabirds. I had a look at the foghorn, but all that there was were a flock of sheltering pigeons, and I did not stay long as the wind was horrendous.
  I wandered around the cliff with not much joy, but I did find another large caterpillar of the same species which was nice. I moved it off the path to prevent people treading on it before I started taking photos of it.

-Caterpillar
After we had finished at the mull we headed back to the caravan site. My family decided to have a brew before we went swimming, so I decided to go and see if I could photograph pied wagtails as we had seen quite a few as we were driving in.
  Sadly, they were very flighty once you were out of the car, and I diddnt really manage to get any really good photos like I had wanted.

-Pied Wagtail 
Somehow in my quest for pied wagtails I ended up on the beach, and from the beach I spotted some gannets diving quite close to shore, which was pretty cool to see. They were difficult to photograph,so in the end I just gave up and watched them instead.

-Gannets
On the way back to the caravan, I spotted yet more flighty pied wagtails that did not contribute much to my wagtail-o-folio!

-Pied wagtail
However, upon arriving back at the caravan, I found a small group of house sparrows dust bathing in a small pit opposite our awning. I have struggled in the past to get photos of this behavior, so being able to here was a nice surprise.

-House Sparrows Dust Bathing

Dumfries and Galloway Day 2

 Day 2 and it rained. It rained all day, except for the late afternoon, where it was overcast and cloudy. During that time I decided to go for a walk because I had been sat inside most of the day and decided that I needed to do something. I walked up the beach and therefore round the heath to see what was about. The first thing I saw was a juvenile guillemot, which had probably just fledged and was currently lost.













-Juvenile Guillemot 
Walking further up the beach and there must have been quite a few fish out to sea because there were a few fishing birds about, namely sandwich tern and gannet, which were quite close to land.

-Sandwich Tern

-Gannet 
at a point further up the beach and the rocks disappeared to be replaced by sand and gravel, which were more appealing to waders, and there were a lot more of them here. Mainly ringed plovers, which had gathered in a rather large flock.

-Ringed Plovers
It was in that region that I flushed a large flock of curlews, mixed with some oystercatchers. sadly I was not able to see them when they were roosted. It was still nice to see them though, although it was from a distance












-Curlews
small groups of ringed plovers were always moving up and down the beach, as well as a handful of turnstones and redshanks, though these were much less frequent.

-Ringed Plovers 
Looking up, the flock of curlews had turned back on itself and was flying over me again. They moved further up the beach than where I had intended to walk, but since I hadn't yet found a way back that diddnt involve walking back the way I came, it seemed unlikely that I would see them again.

-Curlews
there seemed to be a curve in the beach where the sand had congregated, and so the birds had followed suit., and it was here that there were the most birds and most bird species. There were a few gulls besides the waders, but most of the birds were waders. There seemed to be some kind of order, which the oystercatchers on the sea front, with ringed plovers and turnstones further back.

-Oystercatchers 

-Turnstone

-Ringed Plovers
I could see, across the sand that there was a cottage, and assumed that this cottage must have a link to the road, which I could use to get back home. Walking round to the cottage I spotted a hare on the beach, which was lovely to see.

-Hare on the beach
I managed to find the path back to the road, and on the way there I spotted another hare in a sheep field, bringing my hare total up to 2 for the day.

-Hare in field

Dumfries and Galloway Day 1

We moved on from our first port in Dumfries to arrive at New England Bay campsite where we were staying. In the afternoon we went swimming in the sea, so when I eventually went out to see what was about it was dark, and the only things I saw on the beach were some ringed plovers. Sadly the poor light meant that the below was the only photo I managed to get. Look for the bright spots, which are the eyes of the plovers.

-Ringed Plovers
Walking back through the beach top scrub I spotted this caterpillar in the brush, which I think is a Oak Egger  caterpillar, though I am not sure.












-Caterpillar 

Benningborough hall NT

Benningborough hall is not a national trust property reknown for its wildlife, and sadly that showed today. We had spent around 2 and a half hours in the car to get here, due to leeds fest and york races traffic, and so to see nothing was really dissapointing. In the nature area, in the loosest sense of the words, there was a southern hawker hunting around, and there were quite a few butterflies in the garden, only they were regular garden species, except for one holly blue that diddnt want to stay still. The only birdlife was a song thrush, which did look rather lovely though.

Birmingham

I went to a town just outside Birmingham to see friends that I had not seen for a long time. Any wildlife I saw would be a bonus, but when its a dragonfly that you have only ever seen once before, and that time it was a juvenile, then its more like the icing on the cake.
  My friend took me to a local NT property, and while we were walking round the lake I spotted this lovely male black tailed skimmer, only the second time I have ever seen one. Sadly, this one was rather flighty, and difficult to photograph, and I did not have my good camera, I was borrowing my parents camera for casual purposes, not for wildlife photos. I managed one photo in focus where I wanted the dragonfly, the top photo is a cropping of the latter. Either way, it was a lovely dragonfly to see, to say the least

-Male Black Tailed Skimmer

Burnsal Bridge

You know how this goes now. A walk up the river at Burnsal Bridge in the Yorkshire dales, with wildlife included for good measure
  As soon as the walk opened out, I spotted my first ever damselfly here; a common blue












-Common Blue Damselfly
Further up, we found 3 goosanders, one of which was asleep for the most part, though it did wake up while we were there.

-Goosanders
almost back and my brother spotted a lovely female mandarin (though maybe a male in eclipse), which was lovely to see

-Female Mandarin 

Sizewell-2012

Spent a crazy week down at sizewell in suffolk, not for birds or wildlife, but they can hardly be ignored. There was only one day when there was significant wildlife to write about, that being the day when we went to the boating lake in a small tourist town called holderness. The lake was well populated with scarce chaser dragonflies, though it was difficult to get close to them in a kyack but still a great dragonfly to see. There were also quite a few emerald dameflies, again, in a boat it was difficult to clarify that they were common and not scarce emeralds, but the former is more likely. There were lots of other damselflies too, but none that I was able to get close enough for a proper view. At the place we were staying, sizewell hall, there was a common darter and a smashing male southern hawker on the pond, as well as numerous newts.

Back home after angelsey

 We arrived back from Angelsey at around 10 o'clock that evening, so it was dark when we got home. Whilst unloading the caravan, I spotted something flying next to the wheelie bin. I naturally assumed it must be a moth, as it clearly had some orange and was flying at night. I waited to see what would happen and luckily it landed on the wheelie bin. I could'nt believe it when I saw that it was one of the black and red burrying beetles, the first Time I have ever seen one. I got incredibly excited, as I dop when I see something surprising and rushed upstairs to get my camera. I called my family to come and see it, and they followed me to watch it on the bin. It was frustrating that it kept wanting to go under the lid of the bin, but could'nt fit and I could't get a photo of its head. My dad tried to coax it out from underneath the bin lid, but then the most incredible thing happened; it started to squeak. I was shocked, but amazed. Eventually It settled on the floor where I was able to get some record shots of the squeaky red and black burrying beetle. I was tremendously excited. Eventually it flew off into the night...

-Black and Red Burying Beetle (Nicrophorus vespillo)