Why not, I thought, go and see if I can find any evidence of similar at Newport wetlands. After an hour or so the words birdless wastes started to reform in my mind, but I bravely cast them aside and snapped some easier targets.
Narrow leaved everlasting pea
Tufted vetch
Common melilot (and friend)
It turned out all was not lost on the bird front either. When I saw this reed warbler ...........
I knew there would be something else of interest - canny piece of detective work, eh? Always follow a full beak. Turned out to be a fledgling, which eventually showed, sort of.
In the magazines it would be sitting out on an isolated stem in all it's glory, but remember I live in the real world of limited time snapshots. Highlight was the one time I actually saw this food pass, rather than inferring it from all the shaking reed stems!
Having sated my birding needs just enough I headed for home, pausing to look in the ditches around the new visitor centre, where I saw two aquatic aliens. Huge great black things swimming along amongst the algae and weed. I know it's a rubbish picture (somewhat turd like?), but I have no doubt they were water beetle larvae. They look more like great silver in the pictures in my book, but this is said to be rare and so odds are they would be great diving, which is what I originally assumed. Must ask next time at the centre.
Oh, and just a few glimpses of pinging beardies, no obvious juveniles.
As always better quality pictures on the web album - follow link to right.
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