Rolling The Dice

 Today's weather forecast looked far from encouraging with thick cloud seemingly being the order of the day. Alan Shorrock and I ventured over to Stanwick Lakes hoping that the meteorologists might have got it wrong and that the sun would put in an appearance. Reports of Lesser Emperors being present there prompted this optimistic flight of fancy which was sadly brought crashing down to earth as the weather guessers were proved right

Aberrant Common Blue and Banded Demoiselle

Having parked in the A45 lay-by we had a look at the neighbouring pit where a Mandarin and a Little Ringed Plover were the highlights. An aberrant Common Blue Damselfly was one of what turned out to be many seen during our walk. Outnumbering these and by some margin too were Banded Demoiselles, there was a veritable swarm on site. Butterflies responded quite well to the warm but cloudy conditions with Green-veined Whites and Gatekeepers being the most numerous species. As we strolled towards the main lake we added Blue-tailed and Red-eyed Damselflies to our ode list while "new" butterflies included Red Admiral.

Small Copper and Brown Argus

In sheltered spots near the main lake a trio of male Scarce Chasers were noted, I'd seen my year first Brown Hawker a little earlier. Small Copper and Brown Argus were the pick of the butterflies here and we also saw a Common Blue. Birdwise things did not improve much and there was just a single Common Sandpiper on view from the screen hide. Things appeared to be brightening up at this point and we made our way towards the visitor centre lake noting good numbers of Commas, a few Large Whites and some Peacocks on our travels. More Scarce Chasers were seen but the conditions remained unfavourable for the most part with thick cloud interspersed by just the briefest of bright spells. During the latter we saw several female Emperors and one possible female Lesser but the views were inconclusive. After several hours of hanging around we decided that the sun was not going to oblige us and went back to the car.

Scarce Chaser and Coot (but not cute!) chick

Our final stop in frustratingly brightening conditions was at Warth Park, Raunds from where we walked towards the North Lake at Stanwick hoping to see some Cattle Egrets. Finding the cows was easy enough but they were walking through tall vegetation and our prospects did not seem too promising. Fortune intervened however when four egrets flew up from the grasses, all seemed to be adult Cattle. Two landed in view and I was able to take some dodgy record shots. It was getting quite late by now and Shozzer and I decided to head home, a pint in the Dukes at Woodford was a pleasant diversion on the way.

Cattle Egret