A splash of black and white.

A walk up to the Rising Sun yesterday in variable conditions. The weather swung from sunny and hot to dark, windy and wet but it was always close. Swallow Pond was busy but nothing overly exciting on there. The Great Spotted Woodpeckers' nest was quiet, and quite possibly empty now, so i headed on to Dukes' Pond which had 2 families of Coot and a pair of Swans with their 6 cygnets. A little later a striking pair of Reed Buntings worked their way through the phragmites shortly before a single Common Tern drifted in to feed. This is a nice spot to watch the Terns when they come over from the raft on Swallow.

The dark grey skies made me decide to put this up in black and white.

On the Damselfly front, Dukes Pond had plenty tenerals in the surrounding meadow grasses. The Double Ponds again held numbers of immature Damselflies, all Large Red, which preferred the bushes and small trees as resting places. The Plantation Pond however had some mature Blue-tailed Damsels over the water with a single female ovipositing. This was the pond i posted images of multiple exuvia on stems from, which i found again.

Fantastic subjects. Common Tern over Dukes' Pond.