England's Brown And Pleasant Land.

 The dry conditions are continuing which means that much of the countryside is now a mixture of browns and yellows rather than the traditional green. With just a one day weekend to play with I decided after some deliberation to blag a lift from my elder stepson over to Deene from where I walked back via Deenethorpe Airfield and Weldon. In truth there was not a great deal of wildlife on view but it was nice to get some decent exercise in.

Painted Lady

My morning began in the garden where a Painted Lady was a year tick on the Buddleia, this week has also seen numerous visits from Hummingbird Hawk-moths too. Deene was pretty quiet, there were plenty of Willow Emeralds but no other odes. Butterflies here included Gatekeepers, a Small Heath and Green-veined Whites. Interesting birds were few and far between, the pair of Black Swans now appear to have just the one cygnet while there was also a juvenile Shelduck at the inflow. The latter may well be locally born as Deene Lake does occasionally host breeding pairs of this species.

Willow Emerald, Black Swans and juvenile Shelduck

Deenethorpe village hosted plenty of Banded Demoiselles on the Willowbrook but I didn't see any White-legged Damselflies. The neighbouring airfield had more butterflies but in general they seemed scarce. Small Heaths, Meadow Browns and Speckled Woods represented the browns and there were also Common Blues, Painted Ladies, Commas and a Red Admiral to admire as well as the usual whites. Best odes were my year first Migrant Hawkers, a small group were hunting next to Weldon Park Wood. Top bird here was a vocal Raven which croaked noisily as it gained height on a thermal. Away from the wildlife spotting I enjoyed seeing several Auster aircraft on the airfield, I learned later that the club had arranged a fly-in over the weekend. As a military buff I was also pleased to see a Diamond 6 military truck and also an M3 halftrack. My day finished at around noon with a pint in the George where I was able to book a family meal for later this afternoon.

Raven, Migrant Hawker and a pair of Austers