Skippers

A cloudy old day today which unfortunately meant that my weekly walk to Priors Hall was not as productive as I hoped it might be. Clearly whatever weather forecast I looked at was overly optimistic as I'd expected rather more sunshine.

One of many ponds at Priors Hall.

Best bird today was a male Cuckoo which was probably keeping an eye out on the many Reed Warblers that are on site. Plenty of Sand Martins were hawking over the ponds though pickings must have been fairly slim. Only other bird of note today was a singing Sedge Warbler up at the northern end near Kirby Lane.

Dingy (top) and Grizzled Skipper.

With the weather being cool and cloudy it was no surprise that very few butterflies were observed. In fact only two species were seen though thankfully they were good ones with ten plus Dingy Skippers and about six or seven Grizzled being noted. While having a socially distanced chat with Alan Shorrock (who I'm starting to think may live here!) I had an opportunity to photograph an excellently camouflaged Dingy that Mr S had picked out.

This Large Red had a lucky escape.

Only two species of damselflies were found though any were a bonus given the weather. A female Azure was found sitting out the conditions and I also saw two Large Reds. One of these came close to meeting a premature end as it got caught in an old spiders web whilst trying to escape from me. Feeling somewhat responsible for its plight I made an effort to free it from the sticky strands and happily was able to do so. It sat on the tip of my finger for a few seconds before flying up into a nearby alder.

A not so lucky crane fly and wasp mimic hoverfly

Other wildlife noted today included a Brown Hare, two Smooth Newts and a very convincing wasp mimic hoverfly.