New look

It seems to be fashionable to change one's blog template at the moment, so being a mindless herd-follower I thought I'd change mine as well.

Uncanny

Many thanks to John Judge for discovering that a well-known Leicestershire birder, blogger, comedian and now star of local radio is in fact a reincarnation of early twentieth-century German playwright, Bertolt Brecht:

A lucky escape?

Lagoon 4's recent run of form continues, with another county first this evening - a Broad-billed Sandpiper. I found out at about 20:50 when I looked at my phone and saw that I'd got five missed calls - it had been on silent for some reason. Arse. The last time this happened there was a Whiskered Tern at Eyebrook (also a county first) - technology's great, but it helps if it's switched on.

However, there was a huge silver lining to what at first appeared to be a very large and very dark grey cloud - just as I was cursing my luck, I got a message saying that it had flown off north-west at about 20:40. Had I got the first call from Matthew (at 20:00) I would certainly have set off for Rutland Water.... and missed it by a matter of minutes.

The fact that it's gone also means that I don't have to set my alarm for about 3 a.m. tomorrow morning. Hurrah.

See Matthew's gripping photos here.

More media nonsense

From last Saturday's Grauniad - a bit late but I've only just got round to scanning it in:

The article didn't say how they were going to persuade Bar-headed Geese to winter in Scotland rather than India so that farmers could be paid to tolerate them.

On the bog

An excellent afternoon at the Natural England/British Dragonfly Society event at Chartley Moss NNR in Staffordshire. This superb reserve, one of the few examples of a floating peat bog in the UK, is rarely open to the public, so we were very fortunate that our visit coincided with a hot sunny day, ideal for watching dragonflies.

The main object of the day was to see White-faced Darter, which was a new species for me, and we saw about ten in total, mostly over the pools. I totally failed to get close enough to any of these to photograph them, having a) opted to take only my 105mm macro lens rather than the big zoom, and b) very generously lent John my wellies after he forgot to bring his, which meant that I had the choice of either staying away from the edge of the water on the slightly drier bits, or getting wet feet!

John wearing my wellies

Skev (wearing his own wellies) slowly sinks into the bog

Some people looking at dragonflies

However, after a lot of searching I finally found this approachable teneral (newly emerged) darter perched on some heather away from the pool, and was then very glad that I had brought the macro lens:

All in all a very enjoyable day; thanks to John, Mark and Jim for their company, and to John for booking the places on the event. And of course the weather gods for giving us perfect weather for a change!

BBS UTB OML ETC

The flying pig had departed before I arrived at Rutland Water at about 06:45 this morning, but luckily the Buff-breasted Sandpiper was still present on Lagoon 4. No photos as usual, as it was too far away. But very nice all the same. Thanks for another good find Matthew!