EYEING UP

A handful of small red-eyed damselflies were resting on the bushes out of the wind at the country park on Monday 4th. This one obliged long enough for a close-up of its head showing the red eyes. These damselflies were the first ones seen at the park this summer. Also seen were several blue-tailed damselflies, migrant hawkers and common darters.

On the pools in the park grazing fields the two young avocets were still present with one of their parents, also 8 teal, 2 lapwing, 10 black-tailed godwits and a redshank here too.

Enjoyed watching some of the insect action in the Firs Chase garden on Monday with this female ruddy darter resting on a seed-head. One or two migrant hawkers were also busy flying about too.

There was the pleasant surprise of this brown argus in the garden for the second year running. Still a bit surprising to see one in this garden location here rather than out on the more grassy and open seawall.

Got a glimpse of the underwing just to confirm the identity of this brown argus with the pair of spots (one big, one small) half-way along the leading edge of the wing being one of the ID features.

For a nice comparison the argus was soon joined in the garden by its close relative the common blue butterfly. In this case the very close looking female, without showing the pair of close spots near the leading edge.

More tint of blue on the body was another indicator of this being a female common blue.

A female gatekeeper basks on a honeysuckle by our back door with the brown argus also soaking up the sun in the background.

Other butterflies in the garden on a hot Monday were large white, small white, speckled wood, peacock, small tortoiseshell, red admiral and comma.

Two recently fledged sparrowhawk chicks could be heard calling from a nearby wooded garden during the day. On Sunday two sparrowhawks flew over calling, one of them carrying some prey.

In the skies above 3 swifts were heard screaming, probably for one of the last times this summer, also two common terns were calling loudly high up.