Doughty December Darter Defies Doomy Declarations.

X4 time again today though in all fairness it was at least on time as I headed out towards Upper Benefield. Things began very slowly with little of note between the village and Burn Coppice, in fact for the first time that I can recall I never saw a Tree Sparrow. I suspect the mild weather has moved them elsewhere, there was a general shortage of finches or buntings of any sort along the lane.

Dawn at Upper Benefield.

Beyond the coppice there was a little more activity with Fieldfares in particular showing well and a reasonably sized flock of Lapwings too. As is often the case on sunny days Red Kites showed very well with many individuals on the wing. Deene Lake inflow had rather high water levels and neither Snipe or Green Sandpiper were noted although there were over a hundred Teal. Surely they're going to be joined by a Green-winged at some point but that point was not today.

One of many Red Kites.

Not much on the main lake but numbers of wildfowl are slowly building. Perhaps the highlight was a couple of Shelduck though the regular pair of Black Swans were nice to see too. A first visit to the farm ponds for some time produced little with just a pair of Mute Swans on view.

Farm pond at Deene.

Priors Hall provided a few Siskins and a Redpoll for the day list and also a Snipe near the large pond. A flock of about a hundred Lapwings were present in the quarry where a decent amount of wildfowl were present on the largest lake. In all honesty though birds were overshadowed by a single insect in the rather unexpected form of a Common Darter. I'd already declared my dragonfly season over last month but this single male proved me wrong and I was very happy that it did! I caught sight of him as he flew up from a pile of logs and did plenty of swearing as I tried to catch up with him. Happily I did manage to find him again and get some photos. Although he spent most of the time basking on various logs he did make several sallies over a pond before settling down again. Sixteen days until Christmas and I'm still seeing dragonflies, it really has been my best ever year in the county for them.

Common Darter.

Sticking with the festive theme I popped into the George at Weldon and toasted this survivor's pluck with two pints of Rocking Rudolph and jolly nice it was too.

Mute Swans at Deene.