A walk round the pond - week 35

It has been another great week at the pond.  One male migrant hawker in particular was very accommodating.

I was able to take a close-up photo with the lens almost touching his wing.

Another good find was this female southern hawker.

Female hawkers at rest are not easy to find.  Although in close-up their colours are striking, they are also well camouflaged.  All too often they see you first and your first sight of them is as they fly off.  I think I have got better at finding them, partly because I have worked out where to look and also because I now move very cautiously.  This is the sort of habitat they like.  Can you see it?

Or yet?

This close it is easy.

This week I found the blackest black darter I have ever seen.  I suspect this is a change with advancing age as almost all traces of yellow markings have disappeared.

There are still plenty of ruddy darters,

and common darters.

There are now very few damselflies.  I saw no blue-tailed, only one common blue and a handful of emeralds.

I found a forest shield bug (Pentatoma rufipes), but not in a forest.

I was very pleased to see this little bird, one I haven't seen in ages.  It is a spotted flycatcher, a bird in severe decline across the country with a 90% fall in numbers since the 1970s.  Thirty years ago they nested in a box outside my kitchen window but I haven't seen one at home for 20 years or so.

When I came to leave I found goldfinch feathers all over and around the gate, clear evidence that a sparrowhawk had made a kill while I was walking round.  I was sorry to have missed it but the sparrowhawk would have seen me first in any case.

Today is the first day of autumn (using a meteorological definition) so I expect there will be big changes in the next week or two.