Amberswood

Guelder rose

We were back to business as usual so I decided I'd listen to the morning session of the Test Match then have a wander over to Amberswood to see if I could end this month's Cetti's warbler drought.

Black-headed gulls, rooks and jackdaws

I said yesterday there hadn't been a crowd scene of black-headed gulls on the school field so today we had one, nearly fifty of them drifted in at lunchtime.

Speckled wood 

I caught the 132 at the Trafford Centre and hunkered down for the long journey into Hinckley. It's actually about an hour but feels longer. I got off at Gregory Road and walked into Amberswood from the Manchester Road entrance. The hedgerows were eerily quiet. If goldfinches and woodpigeons hadn't been singing in the gardens beyond it would have been silent. Red admirals and large whites fluttered about the buddleias near the entrance, speckled woods flitted about the hedgerows stopping every so often to feed on overripe blackberries.

Amberswood 

A few hundred yards down the path a song thrush scurried across the path. Dunnocks and wrens fidgeted into the roots of brambles and gorse bushes like feathered mice. The only birds providing any prolonged views were the two young jays chasing each other round the canopy of an oak tree.

Broad-leaved helleborine 

I took the path branching out towards the lake through the woodland. Which was dead quiet. I found a couple of stands of broad-leaved helleborine in amongst the woundworts and nettles. As I squatted down to take photos of them a chiffchaff passed by in the trees overhead, giving a little squeak when it noticed me. Woodland birdwatching is a very different prospect in July compared to Spring.

Arriving at Amberswood Lake

I got to the lake where the magpies were rattling in the trees and another chiffchaff was squeaking in the willow scrub by the reeds. That was joined by a great tit and the rustlings in the reeds behind suggested there may have been more in there. I slowly wandered round the lake. I heard or saw no signs of Cetti's warblers but at least two reed warblers nests were betrayed by the begging calls of hungry youngsters. One of the adults assayed a short snatch of song before getting back to feeding the kids. A family party of blue tits flitted quietly out of the reeds into the trees, as did a couple of blackbirds.

Great crested grebe 

Out on the water a full-grown great crested humbug hung around with a group of mallards in the water lilies. One of the adult grebes cruised round the lake while the other sat on a nest. Young moorhens and coots pottered about with their parents. Two or three mallard ducks had small ducklings in tow, it was difficult to know who owned what in one of the groups, keeping track of the ducklings was like herding cats. A couple of common terns made a racket as they passed through and didn't stop. A bunch of black-headed gulls made a racket as they bathed and preened on the water. Way over on the other side of the lake a pair of mute swans leisurely patrolled the reeds margins.

Amberswood Lake 

A few common blue damselflies skittered over the water's surface amongst the waterlilies. I decided that if I made an effort to look for Norfolk hawkers I might bump into a Cetti's warbler. I was halfway round the lake before I bumped into a dragonfly of any kind, a brown hawker chasing flies over the reeds and bushes. As I was watching another brown hawker further along something with green headlamps zipped by at hip height. It came back, barely missing my ear, and resumed a hunt over the wayside flowers. The close fly-by registered a lot of green and some blue, it wasn't until it started flying in straight lines patrolling over some cow parsley I could confirm it as a Southern hawker. I have every admiration for people who get crisp, clear photos of large dragonflies in flight.

Amberswood Lake 

I was bumping into more great tits and blue tits and hearing reed warblers and coots in the reeds. A couple of juvenile chiffchaffs chased each other in and out of the hawthorns in the willow scrub. A kestrel hovered over the rough grass by the path to Liverpool Road. I'd reached the little patch of marsh by the Southern margin of the lake when I spotted a stubby brown dragonfly with clear wings instead of the amber wings of a brown hawker. It was a beggar to keep track of and it took ages to see it well enough to confirm it had the green eyes of a Norfolk hawker. It's only my second sighting of them so I can be forgiven the hesitation in identifying them.

I didn't find any Cetti's warblers.

The mallard ducklings set the pace across the lake…

…but the duck asserted her aurhority