Cosmeston this morning. A Small Copper butterfly was very nice, and a pair of Hairy Dragonflies were over the dragonfly pond plus a Large Red Damselfly nearby. At the main bridge I saw a first, then a second Kingfisher whizz round into the small adjacent inlet on the E. lake side. I crept round and found them sitting in the shade over the water, and then noticed a third. They were in deep shadow but I took a couple of photos with the cam zoomed out to 600mm, and they are young birds, so the pair have had three young this year! I saw one adult carrying a fish a couple of weeks ago. One pic shows all three birds almost as taken [small crop] and the second, the two sitting together – much bigger crop. Also 2 Swift feeding over W lake, and the 4 GC Grebe chicks still doing well. Finally the park is now officially re-opened to pedestrians and cycles. Quite rightly the car park remains closed. The boardwalks are closed as they are too narrow for safe spacing.
Also a nice Dog Rose from the othe day.
very nice, John. Looking at Aderyn (LERC Wales), I see that the Hairy Dragonflies are now well distributed across (fairly coastal) South Wales https://aderyn.lercwales.org.uk/public/distribution/10k/results?taxon_dict_id=1812368
The NBN (national) distribution is even more interesting https://species.nbnatlas.org/species/NBNSYS0000005622
The only Odonata I saw this year were some Large Red Damselfiles – and it’s now a few months since I saw a kingfisher.
Cheers Paul. To be fair my ID of Hairy was by a process of elimination as they clearly weren’t 4Spot Chasers or any others that I’m familiar with, plus i recall s’one telling me they were among the first to emerge.