A Bee on Ken's Bonnet

On Thursday we had our only visit to Eastrington Ponds this year. At the main lake we saw a single Great Crested Grebe chick, but it's parents were already brooding the second clutch. There was a Common Tern on a nest with its partner quartering the lake for food. Blackcaps and Willow Warblers were singing, whilst a Bullfinch called mournfully nearby. A male Kestrel was mobbed by the Common Tern. 

Great Crested Grebe

 Great Crested Grebe with Chick

 Common Tern

 Common Tern

 Wren

 Trapped Roe Deer

It was a very windy overcast morning so we tended to hear birds rather than see them. We were watching a distant Yellowhammer when Claire spotted the bird of the day. There was a Chiffchaff singing near the embankment hide, and a few Blackcaps singing throughout the woodland & scattered Reed Warblers in the reedbeds. A female Roe a Deer spent the whole day trapped in a field with some rather strange sheep. There was at least one husk of a Giant Puffball, some emergent Shaggy Parasols, and in a new area there was the stench of hidden Stinkhorns. It was quite a day for fungi with a gigantic tree stump covered with fairy caps - only normally seen in Autumn. A pair of Mistle Thrushes and an immature Pied Wagtail were on the mown Meadow, plus a feeding Song Thrush, but the area was flooded and the summer flowers had yet to emerge here. The only disappointment was the apparent lack of Green Woodpeckers, Jays and the once resident Barn Owl.  However, it was many people's first visit to the area, and they were mightily impressed with the place. 

Common Spotted Orchid

 Twayblade

 A Bee on Ken's Bonnet