A Parting Gift.

A nice autumnal day with some welcome sunshine making a change from yesterday. I spent the day walking on a squishy carpet of newly fallen leaves while others swirled and eddied in the gusts of wind. Plenty of colour around too with most of the trees now turning, hawthorns in particular looking a beautiful fiery orange. Lots of berries, haws and apples waiting for the arrival of our winter thrushes, that is if the locals don't get to them first.

Tufted Duck.

I headed along to Weldon on a quest to find an October Banded Demoiselle hoping that the reasonably mild conditions since my last visit might help. Stopping on the way at the A43 pond I noticed that most of the birds had gone though a young Dabchick and a Tufted Duck were still present. I think the latter seemed too small to have been from this year's first brood so I suspect a second brood hatched unnoticed by me though I haven't visited this site as often this year. A few Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs were seen too with several of the latter bursting into song.

Once I had got to the stream my search began and initial impressions were not promising as I walked along the stretch where they have shown most recently. Checking both the nettle beds and other waterside vegetation produced nothing apart from some Garden Spiders and a few wasps. The last little bit nearest to the weir came up trumps however with a male hunkered down next to the water, a little worn perhaps but then as a last survivor he's entitled to be, a parting gift from a Summer quickly fading into memory. This is my latest ever record of this species which this year has been on the wing (as far as I'm concerned anyway) since May the seventh.

Last man standing, a male or rather THE male Banded Demoiselle.

No other dragons were seen today but two butterflies showed briefly, a Comma and a Red Admiral perhaps delaying their hibernation a little longer while the temperatures hold up. I kind of hoped to get a first Redwing of the season but that will have to wait for another day.