More local springwatching

Another weekend and this time I did go to Nagshead one morning. It was cold and dark. Typical! The redstart was singing away up in a tree, but didn't seem in any hurry to come down. The pied flycatchers were around, but the best views were 20 yards off. I saw a bird leave another nestbox and patiently waited behind a tree to catch my shot, but it turned out (eventually) to be a great tit. Still the bluebells were pretty .......

and I did find a wren's nest in good view - but dreadful light so there is a snap of the nest (which stays still), but not of the wrens (which don't).

At Parkend the nuthatches were in slightly better light for once and I caught this food pass.

Back at home Kay found a slow-worm by the pond, and so her first snap hits the blog.

The several pairs of starlings nesting under our eaves have monopolised the mealworms to the extent that each feed is gone in a few minutes, ...................

but then given the decline in their numbers I won't begrudge them that. Or the fact that all bar one of the occupied woodland nest holes I found locally turned out to contain starlings. The other? Another great tit!

The 'wild' starlings were surprisingly wary despite nests about 15 feet high, and so I didn't stay too long, but managed a few shots of feeding.

Meanwhile down at the pond recently the warm weather saw a succession of damsel flies hatching:

The nymph emerges, showing the tail 'feathers' that I always tried to copy when tying my damselfly nymph trout flies.

After a while the adult emerged to dry and swell in the sunshine

revealing another large red damsel. If you look closely there is another on the sedge leaf below and behind.

It soon joined the others on a nearby spirea. Don't know why, but they really seemed to go for this bush.

Back at the pond all the empty cases brought a warm glow at the thought that even my little pond could be such a useful resource to the local wildlife. Awww!