Bank Holiday rarity!

Relax, I'm just talking about the sun. It was beautiful on the Lizard this morning. The 1st summer Hobby showed up again but not long enough for me to improve on my photos taken in very average light yesterday, when Dougy and I watched for it hunting over Ruan Pool for over half an hour. The summer-plumage Black-tailed Godwit that Dougy also saw wasn't around today.




There were lots of dragonflies and damselflies on the wing today. Here are shots of a teneral (= recently emerged) Broad-bodied Chaser and a male Beautiful Demoiselle. The best area to see lots of the latter is along the western boardwalk.








Meanwhile the short boardwalk behind the old scrape (the one in front of the large hide) is great for Common Lizards. Walk along slowly on a sunny day and you can get very close without disturbing them.





The Hereford cows' dreams came true this morning when the bull arrived. When they saw him coming down the ramp out of the trailer they all went charging across to greet him, but he did his "Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" act, turned his back and got stuck into some serious grazing. That lasted about five minutes before he realised he was in heaven. For a while he didn't know which way to turn, but he left me in no doubt that he didn't welcome any paparazzi clicking away while he was at work. That photo (right) was taken with a standard lens and, just for a moment, I was ever so slightly worried! My advice is to give him a wide berth until he's used up some of that adrenalin.




Our contractor has buried a flexible pipe in the bank of the pond formerly know as the dead pond (see a previous post), to allow us to maintain a low water-level. The bit sticking out needs pruning but I'm showing this photo first to demonstrate how the colour of the pipe has been carefully chosen to blend in with the environment....