May 19th 2023
There’s plenty of images popping up on social media sites of dragonflies and damselflies being recorded throughout Lancashire but I’m not having much success locally. I’ve record two individuals of one species so far – Large Red Damselfly, one in the garden, one at Brockholes during a quick visit to drop by Binoculars off for repair on 4th May and none at Dean Clough by 18th May.
There was however some bird interest on today’s visit to DC with a family of Stonechats with four fledglings above the upper res. There is a pair of Great-crested Grebes making a nesting attempt on the upper res and the male mated with the nest-sitting female during my visit. They were successful last year in raising two young. Let’s hope they can repeat that in the face of the increasing disturbance from dog walkers. Indeed while I was there there was a person performing what looked like gun-dog training on the banks of the upper res, less than 60 metres from the grebe nest.
Five Reed Bunting males were in song, along with a party of five linnets and some fly-over Redpolls.
Other species included Meadow Pipit, Skylark, Lapwing, Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Lesser-black-backed gull, Oystercatcher, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow and Swallow.
And here’s the gun dog training session!
