Birthday trip

To mark our lass's imminent birthday, I thought I'd take her out on a jolly jaunt to a National Trust property, complete with teashop, restaurant, craft shops, park land and gardens. Pushing all the right buttons, just not necessarily in the right order.

The fact that this particular site was in Buckinghamshire, in a previously unrecorded 10km square for Odonata and that the Admiral and his notebook were in tow, was purely coincidental.

So, shortly before lunch, we found ourselves at Claydon House, wandering around the gardens which included this rather uninteresting-looking pond...

however, it had very recently contained 50, that's five, oh... fifty, of these creatures...

the exuvia (or discarded larval skin) of an Emperor dragonfly. The emerged adults had dispersed to who knows where, because we only spotted one, very briefly, much later on.

There were also a dozen or so pre-emergent larvae, waiting their moment to move from the aquatic world to the aerial one.

After a pleasant lunch in the Carriage House Restaurant, we wandered out into the park and down to the lakes. Here we found several Four-spotted Chasers emerging...

along with a bazillion Azure, Red-eyed and Blue-tailed Damsels. A few Common Blues and Large Reds completed the haul of a successful day's odo-ing, er... I mean, birthday celebrating, obviously.

Back in the garden, a sunny bank full of wild flowers produced several Common Blue butterflies, this male...

and this female.

A pair of Pied Wagtails were busy with beakfuls of insects and dodging tourists to feed their nestlings in the vegetation above a doorway. Which can only mean one thing... Springwatch is back tonight!

It's an Emergence-y

The Admiral suggested a trip to Woodwalton Fen on Saturday. His timing was perfect, as several hundred Scarce Chasers decided that "today's the day", and emerged in a show of solidarity that would reduce your average synchronised swimmer to tears.

As well as these beauties (it's an eye of the beholder thing), there were Four-spotted Chasers, Hairy Dragonflies and a supporting cast of damselflies. Large Red, Azure, Blue-tailed, Red-eyed and a single Variable.

A haul of six raptors was pretty special too, Red Kite, Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, Hobby, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk. But the day belonged to the Scarce Chasers...

if only I knew what she was pointing at?