The Best and the Worst

I say the best and the worst. Fortunately the worst was nipped in the bud before my worst nightmare was lived. However the Best was the best when at long last I managed to photograph a Red Kite and for the most of its body was in sharp focus.

The past few weeks since my last posting has been pottering around Stanton Park, Nythe Pool, Aldbourne and the back garden. Some of the highlights have been the fantastic displays of the male Banded Demoiselles along the banks of the River Cole just downstream of Nythe Pool.

 

Banded Demoiselle male

 

Banded Demoiselle male

 

Banded Demoiselle female

 

Banded Demoiselle female

At Stanton Park it was the Chasers and a few mating in the trees and along the pathway of the dam. Also there were a pair of Tufted Duck and their two offspring, which I'm glad to say survived the predation by a Carrion Crow on the 30 May.

 

Broad Bodied Chaser

 

Grey Heron

 

Broad Bodied Chasers mating

 

Broad Bodied Chasers mating in the trees 

 

Damselfly

 

Damselfly

 

Terrapin

Back at Nythe in the back garden a female Banded demoiselle landed on the Yellow Irises and a Peacock butterfly was one of the first to find the budleia.

 

Banded Demoiselle female

 

Peacock butterfly

 

Peacock butterfly 

And then of course the trip to Aldbourne to visit relatives was also rewarded by great views of a pair of Red Kites. In the back garden a Heebee was the centre of attention with a lot of different species of bees and hoverflies a few are shown below, so if anyone has any ideas what they could be, then drop me a line.

 

Red Kite

 

Hoverfly sp.

 

Bee sp. (White-tailed!!)

 

Bee sp.

 

Hoverfly sp. 

 

Hoverfly sp. 

The worst nightmare though was selling my 70 - 200mm lens to a cyber thief in Sheffield, though I doubt he lived there. I mean who goes by the name of AlleyBarry for part of their email address and then calls themselves Richard Lewis.  However the problem arose because he insisted, by email, that he had placed money into my PayPal account and that it was OK for me to ship the goods.  Sounded fine in theory except that he hadn't put the money into my account. Apparently he was told by PayPal to tell me to ship the goods. I rang PayPal and it was all a pack of lies, no monies were in my account. Not only that the cheeky so and so had emailed me what looked like official documents from PayPal, logos, Manager Directors signatures the lot - All FAKE.  Fortunately I didn't succumb to to this rather bizarre attempt of deception and contacted the Sheffield Police, who in turn put me onto the Action Fraud. Both were very interested in what I had to say and I can highly recommend Action Fraud who are the UK's national fraud and internet crime reporting centre, based in Manchester. Here's the link if you ever need it - Action Fraud


Oh and just to show you what the email was I had from AlleyBarry, here it is in its original form. Richard Lewis, I DONT THINK SO (Remember to fill your lungs right up first before reading!!)

hello seller,
thank you for your urgent reply and have already contacted paypal on your behalf about your fund and the explain that they are taking new procedure for international transaction in order to secure but buyer and seller against fraud and they just introduce the new system for international transaction only and your fund have been deducted from my account already and they want you to complete the transaction by shipping the item 1st and providing paypal with the tracking number before they will credit your account with your fund.I hope you would have been contacted by paypal now for confirmation of payment.
thank you and pls reply if you have any question.

A bit of a panic

There I was all set for a pleasant walk around the Aldbourne area, when having only walked for about a mile I suddenly realised I was missing my wallet from my back pocket. So having only mustered a handful of birds and butterflies it was back to Nythe to check in the house. It was a real shame cause' there on the kitchen work surface was the wretched thing. I think it must have been one of the quickest walks I've ever attempted, but the main thing I hadn't lost it and I did at least record Swift, House Martin, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Robin, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Blackcap, Dunnock, Linnet, Corn Bunting and Magpie. On the butterfly front it was just 1 Small Tortoiseshell and 2 Ringlets.

Small Tortoiseshell

With no time to go back and carry on my walk it was a bit of back garden bug hunt. A female Common Damselfly was a pleasant surprise as it rested on a Yellow Flag leaf. Other creatures in the garden were a fly-by Small Tortoiseshell, a few Green Bottle Flies and Bees. There were a few unidentified insects and I've added them below. One in particular was a grab shot hence the poor quality but it was bee like and had a bright orange colouration on the side and under the abdomen.

Female Common Damselfly

Green Bottle Fly

 

Possible Digger Wasp - crossocerus quadrimaculatus

Re-identified as a syritta pipiens (hoverfly)

Thank you to Peter Brash for the identification.

 

Is this a Heriades truncorum? See footnote below.

Possible Honeybee

Hoverfly - Helophilus pendulus

 Overhead a Sparrowhawk headed south and a pair of Blackbirds were very agitated with something.

Female Blackbird

Footnote: Having sifted through a few books and the internet the closest match I could find to the mystery bee above is a Heriades truncorum. The website I used to find it was bwars.com but as its only found in a few places in the south-east I'm not that convinced. More research.....

Busy times

I make no apologies for the lack of posts. Even though I'm presently unemployed, I have been that busy, that finding just a few minutes to write something has been difficult to say the least. However its definitely time to catch up or Blogger.com will stop my account for lack of posts.

The fine weather has seen many emails posted in for the Swindon Birds and Wildlife Blog and it has been fantastic to read the wonderful wildlife reports and the many excellent images that have been sent in. Even though I've not been able to get out as much as I had hoped, I'm fortunate that I have a back garden that seems to be on the main thoroughfare for the local raptors. And in the past week or so there have been some evening passage of Hobbies and Sparrowhawks. A Red Kite was a bit of a surprise though it was in the distance.

Hobby

Hobby

Swift

Also from the back garden the Carrion Crows have been busy feeding one of the two juveniles and as the weather turned hot, the juvenile was seen panting for air to cool down.

Adult Carrion Crow

Juvenile Carrion Crow panting in the heat

Last Friday I managed a fishing trip to Lawns Pools, I had a few small silver fish, but to be honest it was that hot it was more interesting to watch the damselflies with Banded Demoiselle, Large Red Damselfly, Common Blue Damselfly and Red-eyed Damselfly flitting around me. And of course a Robin!

Large Red Damselfly

Large Red Damselfly

I also had a wonderful day out to the Guildhall in Salisbury on Tuesday with my future father-in-law to celebrate his birthday and also to view my Grandfathers VC which is on public display. It was a beautiful day and on the way down there from Swindon we saw a good number of Red Kite.

My Grandfathers portrait

His medals in the Silver Room

Wednesday was first day out for a good walk and I think the 3 hours I walked over the Ridgeway was well worth it. A count of what I saw can be seen on the SBaW Blog dated 10 Jul 13.

Part of the Ridgeway Circular path

Skylark