New Hythe Lakes Friday 30th July ( Part 1)

I only had a short time this morning due to picking friends up from Gatwick early this afternoon, so I decided to just spend some time around the Sunken Marsh and Brooklands lake. With birding being so quiet I decided to concentrate on what was lurking in the undergrowth instead of what was hiding in the trees.
Unfortunately the first picture is a UFO, not a good start I know. I also know it looks like a bumblebee but, it didn't fly like one and I didn't think it's eyes looked like one either. So could it be a hoverfly species? Any help would bee appreciated!

As I was hovering around and scratching my head over this I suddenly saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and was surprised to see this young Reed Warbler sitting on a reed stem completely unconcerned by my presence. I watched it for ages, hardly daring to move and then Mum turned up and junior got a nice juicy fly for lunch. I saw him being fed about half a dozen times while I stood there but the parent bird never gave me the opportunity to make it a star unfortunately. I did manage to get a few shots of junior though, I can't believe how obliging he was.

So much for a non birding post then.

There were a few butterflies around but nothing that I haven't featured often enough recently. But I did like the look of this Speckled Wood, especially against the lovely green background so I decided to make an exception and include it in the line up.

SPECKLED WOOD

In the SW corner of Brooklands Lake there's a large pile of chipped bark and I always check it out to see if anything is basking on it as it's always in full sun. While I was doing this I noticed something moving below it's surface, it looked as if it had a beating heart. I thought, that's odd, and took a few steps back, not because I was frightened you understand, but because I thought watever it was I wanted to be able to take it's picture when it broke through into the sunlight. Thank goodness for zoom lenses. Anyway it didn't show itself and it moved a couple of feet along the side of the pile but stayed just below the surface. I don't know what it was but it must have been really hot in there. I'll return to this soon and try to find out what it was.

Close by I found this Black-tailed Skimmer also basking in the heat of the sun and another one on the lakeside clinging to a reed stem. There were also some Emperor dragonflies and a couple of Brown Hawkers in the vicinity but as usual they wouldn't settle.

BLACK-TAILED SKIMMER

BLACK-TAILED SKIMMER

And finally......................

The only other dragonfly that I saw and managed to record was this Ruddy Darter and the ruddy thing had me darting around in the heat for about ten minutes before I was able bag it. I always wondered why they call them darters!

RUDDY DARTER