Sunny Spells 3-6-09

A ride out on the bike to check the local ponds etc: it was sunny when I left and soon had a Painted Lady it skipped past and landed in cover, another at West Hartford with a few Blue Tailed, House Martins taking mud from the pool edge, Grasshopper Warbler Singing but could not find it in the thick cover. Large red, Blue Tailed , Common Blue & Azure damsels out in good numbers in the warm sunshine , but soon dropped out of sight as it clouded over , the message of NORTHUMBERLAND......BROWN HEADED COWBIRD I thought it was going to be the Farnes but no BELFORD I was going to have to leg it back home pronto, till I read it properly as May the 1st -2nd but not since, later another message of Woodchat Shrike from last month also, well I suppose it makes a change from reports of anything that moves at Saltholme , it was my intention to go to Arcot pond via the path from the west( to avoid the crowds!), but when I got down the path through the woods was too overgrown to get the bike down so I headed for Big Waters a nightmare trying to get across that roundabout on the A19 with new light system on a bike, again plenty of Damselflies when the sun was out most not very confiding and moving off as I neared dropping further into cover, headed back home via Dudley one of the factories has established a small reserve but there does not seem to be any access, there was plenty of House martins & Swallows over the water, my next stop was to be Holywell but it was getting colder by the minute so I headed home via the BIG SPOON(I will not say anymore but worth seeing) , stopped in a clearing as the sun had come out and again another Painted Lady, with yet another further on , I think I would have seen more had it remained warm.

Painted lady taking cover

Cow Parsely , have a good look at umbelifers with a 10x hand glass and see how intricate they are & just how many insects are on them.

Seed pods

Was lucky enough to find this Blue Tail with a small fly of some sort, thats one of it's legs removed, still a large meal when you compare the sizes, prey is caught in the legs which are bristly and held up to form a basket

I presume they can absorb heat reflected from the ground this is like a concrete cover and was very warm to the touch , three out of the four landed on the path or tarmac.