At last, some warm sunshine has arrived after almost continuous dull grey and wet weather for what must have been 8 weeks or more. Most reservoirs in my county of Derbyshire are now classed as 99.5% full. To-day I joined Barrie, Anita & Elliott on a Butterfly walk around Foremark Reservoir. The walk was attended by 4 other people and was designed to be a fairly low key event. The weather & air temperture were both ideal, so it was going to be rather interesting to see what butterflies would be on the wing and in what kind […]
I decide to take a walk round Staunton Harold Reservoir this morning, my “Local Patch”. It proved to be a good move as no sooner on site I discovered two female Common Scoter. The birds were sat in the middle of the reservoir at the dam end and the first record here for a number of years. These sea-duck seem to be regularly encountered on inland waters during July. They were very distant & I could only manage a heavily cropped record shot. Also nearby on one of the marker buoys the regular near adult Yellow-legged Gull, was […]