Stodmarsh NNR revisited

After about 30 hours with no internet access due to some problems at Tiscali I'm now back on line and able to post again. Today I led a walk for the KOS at Stodmarsh NNR. It started well with the car-park payment machine out of order, thank you. I've put a full list of what we saw on the KOS Forum here.

One very noticable speciesd was the Painted Lady with quite a few seen during the day (an a lot more in the garden this evening. We walked out to the marsh Hide where we saw the Black-winged Pratincole. fairly passive resting on the ground. On the way three Spoonbills flew over, totally taking by surprise and the cameras didn't make it out of the bags.

Terry Laws's keen eyes (defying the advancing years) picked out two of the large Caterpillars of the Drinker moth. The fine hairs can cause irritation to the skin, so beware of picking it up if you find one.

This is what it will turn into (a picture taken a couple of years ago).

Again Terry spotted a Water Shrew working along the edge of the path, and I think Terry got some good pictures, unfortunately I managed just blurrs.

It was good to see several Large Red Damsel flies.

Hobbies were noticeable by their absence in the first part of the day, but when they finally took to the air there were quite a few in up over the Slag heap end of Stodmarsh. A couple come over our heads while we had short sit down and some refreshments along the river, about half way back from the Lampen Wall to Grove Ferry. There were quite a few Hairy Dragonflies around, these are the first of the hawkers to emerge.

From the Harrison Drove Hide there were good views of Avocets, Black-tailed Godwits and Greenshanks. A Grey Heron fished in the nearest ditch.

Further along the ditch a Little Egret was feeding, until it flew to the back of the pool.

We got some good views of the Pratincole flying round, and once again I admired those photographers that had got some really good pictures. I found it difficult to follow and got just a few distant shots.

Back at the mound two drake Garganeys were on show. It was an enjoyable day with a good range of birds, with lots of other things of interest.