R and I went to Croome this morning, where I was hoping (though not expecting) to spot the Lesser Emperor that was reported there yesterday. I didn’t find him, but there were several Emperors hawking around the lake and “river”, along with Broad-bodied, Four-spotted and Scarce Chasers, Black-tailed Skimmers, and a clutch of the usual damselfly suspects. There also seemed to be a mass emergence of Ruddy Darters taking place, because after I spotted this specimen – my first of the season – I found several others among the reeds and rushes around the lake, and also spotted quite a few tenerals lifting off out of the foliage and fluttering weakly up into the trees. Although this female has hardened off and coloured up beyond the point at which you’d call her teneral, you can see how fresh she is from her soft and reflective wings.
I’ve included a second photo tonight, of a brood of Swallow chicks in a nest on top of one of the pillars in the Temple Greenhouse. It’s not a great image, because of the angle at which I was shooting, and because the colour of the walls and the almost complete lack of light played havoc with the colour balance, but I love it anyway. I’m thinking of calling it “Stuffed” – mainly because the chicks are almost spherical and they’re absolutely crammed in the nest, but also because there’s an air of unreality about the scene makes it look almost like a taxidermy exhibit. It is, of course, illegal as well as immoral to disturb a brood of birds – even when the parents have chosen to build their nest in a place as public as this – so as soon as we’d taken a look at the chicks through binoculars (R) and camera (me) we left the building, so that the parents could carry on stuffing their gigantic babies with food.
R: L2, C10, D24.
