Just to complete the saga, our last day was a bit mixed with a fairly stiff breeze but occasional spells of sunshine (plus a rain shower).
We met with a friend who used to belong to our photographic club, who now lives in Norfolk, and introduced him to another boggy slice of his adopted home county, Alderfen. Having found Variable Damselflies (Coenagrion pulchellum) at How Hill NNR yesterday, I was keen to see if any had emerged at Alderfen, just for the county records.
After a VERY slow start spotting just two fleeing Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula), things looked up a bit when I spotted two Variables in a grassy patch just as Francine spotted two more beside a small inlet. They were keeping very low down in the vegetation to shelter from the wind and I don’t blame them. Male Variables generally have a broken antehumeral stripe, said to look like an exclamation mark. This one has such a broken stripe that it looks more like a full colon. Well, they ARE variable.
Further along the stream track at last a Large Red Damselfly posed long enough for for those of us who wanted to to get a crack at it; it still kept low down but at least it wasn’t obscured.
Almost back at the cars an unusually cooperative Orange Tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) sat on a particularly photogenic dandelion clock and that got all three of us excited. Francine even managed to catch a glimpse of orange with the wings partially open.
It had eventually been better than expected but ‘t was time to retire to the pub and reminisce over a pint or two. Well, the pub is right next door to our campsite.
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