Half Day at Oundle

Given that work were good enough to let me escape early I thought that it might be rude to waste it and so hopped on the X4 and headed off to Oundle. Learning from yesterday's mistake I made sure that my camera came with me and happily there were a few things to photograph.

River view and my favourite flowers - hops!

An adult Common Tern was flying around the marina when I arrived while numbers of both Blackcap and Sedge Warbler were feeding in waterside vegetation. As clouds were the dominant feature of today's weather it was not too surprising that insects were only present in small numbers though there were some decent species on offer. Small Coppers are always a treat for me as I never see anywhere near as many as I would like so one today was welcome. Two each of both Common Blue and Small Heath were found though they were outnumbered by Speckled Woods and both Small and Large Whites. A single Green-veined completed the butterfly list for today.

Small Copper, Common Blue and Speckled Wood.

Blue-tailed Damselflies seem to be one of the more cloud tolerant species and they were certainly the most numerous species today and the presence of several tenerals suggests that they' will be around for quite a bit more. A species seemingly on the way out around here are Banded Demoiselles with only a few on view though perhaps that was due to the weather. The only other damsel seen today was a teneral Common Blue. Not too many dragons around though double figures of Migrant Hawkers were observed with most being hunting males. Singles of Brown Hawker and Common Darter were also recorded. While watching out for damsels a large flock of Lapwings flew over, at least fifty individuals must have been involved.

Blue-tailed and Common Blue damselflies.

At Barnwell CP it was a case of avoiding the numerous screeching brats as they ran around enjoying the last week of their holidays. Despite the noise there were a few birds about with the highlight being half a dozen Mandarin ducks. Plenty of tits were moving through and their flocks contained several Chiffchaffs in their number. A sign of the approaching autumn was a large flock of Swallows twittering from the tops of several bushes before they all took off together and headed off to feed. That seemed like a very good idea to me though I favoured a late liquid lunch and so set off into town for a couple of pints.

Sedge Warbler, Mandarin and Goldfinch.