Day Trip

Today Phil and myself went to Dixton Embankment in Monmouth to look for Club Tailed Dragonfly. We arrived just after nine, were in good spirits thinking we would find one easily and be on our way. Well how wrong could we have been. There till almost twelve and no show. But being a day away we always try to make the most of it, a year tick staight away was a Spotted Flycatcher and Phil got a life tick in the form of a White Legged Damselfly. The big surprise was it was the only one we saw there. There was hundreds of Banded Demoiselles,I saw a Garden Warbler with is beak full of them, he must have been in warbler heaven. The butterflies on site were very poor, we saw three different Painted Ladies and a Small White. There were a couple of Poppies around the place they are always great to see. Saw a couple of Teepee in the fields and Phil felt like Sitting Bull.

After this very quiet walk we thought about plan B and decided to go to Highnam Woods for Nightingales. We got there pretty quick but found the gate locked so had to park on the road, all thanks to the local Doggers for not using the site for what it supposed to for .We than went in and sat in the hide which used to be a hide but is now a screen with a roof on and ate our healthy lunch!!! On the pool were a good number of Azure Damselflies and a cracking male Broad Bodied Chaser and our first Large Red Damselfly of the year.  The woods was fairly quiet and we walked around the tracks listening for the magic song to start. Found lots of puddles where there were lots of Deer and Badger tracks in the mud. Just when we thought it was a waste of time we found a family party of Marsh Tits who had six chicks to feed which was a great bonus as we needed it for the year. Also we so lots of Silver Y Moths around the tracks also a first for the year. so with  time going so fast we decided to head for home. Typically then a Nightingale started singing from the path we had walked down earlier and than a different one answered back so we thought here we go, we started to walk back towards them and they of course then went silent..