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.