Not often we get this far south

A meet-up with some of the gang down at Burton Mere RSPB reserve, down at the thin end of the Dee estuary in Cheshire, was on the cards a couple of weeks ago, somewhere we don't get to very often. While waiting for the other half of the gang to arrive I had a scan over the large pool in front of the visitor centre seeing several Ruff and a few Black-tailed Godwits, in the distance a 'swarm' of House Martins had gathered over the far side of the reserve after a short shower. Meanwhile Cliff had spotted a couple of European Hornets going about their business around a Bramble thicket to the side of the centre. I had a look at them, they're not something we see often and these are the furthest north I've seen them in Britain. They were great to watch but not so easy to photograph as they spent quite a lot of time hidden by the foliage and flew from spot to spot frequently so getting the camera to focus on them was more luck than judgement. Almost got it right...

Still waiting for the others to arrive another birder told us the whereabouts of a flock of Yellow Wagtails foraging around the feet of a small herd of cows. As the field was only a short stroll away we risked not being at the visitor centre when our friends turned up.We were very lucky to find the cows were in the corner of the field very close to the path. 

The Yellow Wagtails looked tiny as they hunted insects disturbed as the 'huge' bovines slowly grazed their way across the grass. We counted 11 but the most I could get in one pic was five.

At last our friends arrived and we set off to explore the main side of the reserve together. It shows how infrequently we visit this reserve cos when we arrived we chatted to a warden and asked him how the Bearded Tits fared this summer, his answer was that they hadn't been on the reserve since 2016! The pool and surrounding reedbed they favoured held nothing but a Snipe and a Little Grebe although a pile of reed cuttings stashed close to the viewing screen looked bob-on for Grass Snakes - wonder if there are any here. The view from the hide round the corner was disappointing, the reeds on one side hadn't been cut yet but was only a few days into the reed cutting season and the scrape on the other side which is often busy with waders and waterflowl was bone dry like many other places this summer. 

Some welcome sunshine brought butterflies out along the boardwalk leading to the far hide. Hemp Agrimony and Fleabane were both still flowering and attractinge a nice variety of insects including this Red Admiral.

There were plenty of hoverflies out n about and one of the eagle-eyed among us spotted a Big-headed Digger Wasp, one of the Ectemnius wasps, crashing around on a Hogweed flowerhead. 

They hunt the flowers of umbellifers for hoverflies which they then take back to their nest dug out of a rotten piece of timber. They're not the easiest thing to photograph with a big zoom lens.

 We were hoping for lots of dragonflies which might bring the Hobbys out but so far there were only a few on the wing. Butterflies were enjoying the sunny spells with plenty of Small Whites, several Red Admirals and a few Green-veined Whites flitting around the flowers. 

The hide was fairly quiet, 'just' a few Mallards with a smattering of Teal and Pintail thrown in for good measure. A few Snipe were secreted around the margins of the pool, this one hadn't read the script and was probing around on top of a little island and in the shallows around it right out in the open.

Over on the far side of the pool a gaggle of Grey-lag Geese loafed around lazily with some sleepy ducks. Behind them a lone Cattle Egret strutted around looking for something tasty...do birds have taste buds? 

Lunchtime loomed so we decided to retrace our steps and go and eat at the small hide close to the Yellow Wagtails. Leaving the hide Anno pointed out some spiders, common Garden Cross Spiders and one he affectionatly called a 'Hanging Hammock Spider' I don't thing that's a 'real' name for it. On the way we passed a new butterfly for the day, a Small Copper. All of us remarked how few of these we've seen so far this summer.

Within a few yards we also found a Common Darter basking on a bench.

Further down the path we found a black and orange coloured Metellina sp Ichneumeon Wasp. Back at the cow field most of the cattle had moved into another field behind a hedge so were out of sight and the three remaining ones had no Yellow Wagtails in attendance. Outside the hide a Stonechat sortied for flies from the fenceline in front of us. The pool below held Black-tailed Godwits, a Snipe, a Heron and this elegant Great White Egret.

After lunch we had another shuffy at the cow field but still to no avail, the cows hadn't moved from their far field, before having a look at the small lakes where I used to go fishing for Carp and Tench in the dim and distant past. 

The afternoon brought longer spells of sunshine and that meant the dragonflies were much more active. One particular male Common Darter kept returning to this granite pebble after his sorties after prey, or more often chasing other dragonflies out of his patch.

Migrant Hawkers hawked about, a fatter blue dragonfly that quickly disappeared was probably a Broad-bodied Chaser. There were several tandem pairs of Common Darters flitting around egg-laying around the shallow edges of the little pool. One of the former fishing lakes had a shoal of Rudd hanging around just beneath the surface...should have taken a pic, the light on them was good enough...dohhh. The other two lakes didn't provide the hoped for Mandarin Ducks, Mallards, Gadwall and a small number of Tufted Ducks were all that we could see. 

Time was creeping up on us and we made the decision to have a last 20 minutes wander up towards the boardwalk to see what insect life was about now the sun was out more often. A helpful birder told us to look for the Kingfisher that is regularly seen on a pool we were about to pass. No sign of it today though.

We'd not long got out into the open that we heard a Buzzard mewing above us. There were two, one of which glided off and was lost behind the trees, the other did a couple of circuits above the tree tops before soaring higher and moving  off out of view.

A couple of minutes later another bird of prey was spotted by Andrea and no it wasn't one of the Buzzards coming back but the hoped-for Hobby - Today's Spotters Badge goes to Andrea. Thankfully it spent enough time between the tree tops for a few snaps to be taken. 

Good sunshine now had lots of insects out and we spent all our remaining time having a good look at them. There were plenty of Small White butterflies and Common Darter dragonflies but pick of the bunch was this Migrant Hawker that landed to eat whatever it had caught and we were able to show several other people passing by.

Turning round and heading back towards the car park I spotted an unusual looking hoverfly - well it looked like one without my specs on. It was in fact a Tachinid fly, Tachina fera and close by, noticed when we were having as close as possible a look without our specs, was a Dock Bug scrambling about on a nearby Fleabane seedhead.

And with that all good things came to an end and it was time to hit the busy M6 back up north so we'll see you out on safari somewhere next time.

Bye for now