Shropshire Day 2

Another sunny day greeted us as we woke up for the first time in shropshire. Today was train day-that being the day we would go for a train ride on the severn valley railway. Last time we were inundated with harlequin ladybirds, so I was hopeing that there would be again, now that I fully knew how to take photos of bugs and things. The train journey goes from bridgenorth, where we were staying, to kidderminster.
The journey to kidderminster passed without anything really exciting happening. Although there is an interesting bit where the train goes past a safari park-so we saw elephants, buffalo, blackbuck and rhinos.
At the train station however there were some far more interestin owls to look at and admire. The people there had brought owls to station for some reason, to highlight publicity I imagine, but it allowed me a close view of these stunning birds. It might actually have been something to do with the halloween week, as though owls signify evil spirits and stuff!!
They had about Nine owls-2 barn owls, 2 eagle owls, a boobook owl, a tawny owl, plus a little owl and a burrowing owl, Though I think the burrowing owl was actually a little owl desert form-its legs were no where near long enough for burrowing. there was also a white-faced scops owl.

-Barn Owl

-Little Owl

-Stunning white faced scops owl

-Was quite pleased with these two, Little owl face
After that we decided to get the train to "country park holt" station where would have lunch. As it happens we had lunch on the train so we got off at the station and had a coffee. This station is request only and goes into a country park, which we have used before. That also means that there are not many people here.

On the country park sign I found my first and only harlequin ladybird of the day, and managed a few shots of some standard, though they're not great.

-Harlequin ladybird

Another feature of this country park is kingfishers, which it had at least 3 last time we were here. My family were going to walk along the river straight to the next station, about 1mile away. I, on the other hand, was going to go up to the visitor center and the hides at the top of the park.

However the only excitiment was really to be found on the bridge. As I watched a hornet fly past, but I couldnt see where it went, much to my dissapointment. Then I watched a kingfisher fly past, upstream where I couldn't follow it. Then a dragonfly of some kind flew under the bridge, but I lost that as well, so I saw lots of interesting things, just not for very long.

Up at the visitor center I had a look at the info board and saw a picture of a club-tailed dragonfly. It reminded me that this river would be teeming with this rare dragonfly in the spring, only in autumn there was only room for dragonflies that chose not to land.

From the hides I saw a sum total of nothing, the only thing of interest being the mallards on the pond outside.

Walking back I had an awful experience. I casually looked over the back of a bench, as you do generally, and flushed a darter dragonfly that had rested there, which then flew away. I was quite annoyed then and re-discovery missions failed to find him. I imagine that it was a common darter based on the time of year.

At the bottom of the park, near the river, I spotted a common buzzard flying quite low. It was going to fly right over me, but its circling pattern was rudely interrupted by a mobbing crow which caused it to divert away from me, never-the-less I got good views of it.

Walking along the river was also a dissapointment. There were no birds-but maybe because of some morons on the other side of the river letting their dog run a riot all over the riverside-people like that do my head in!