Dragonfly Walk

The Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust celebrated its diamond anniversary by holding a dragonfly walk through Mountsorrel Marshes, led by its senior conservation officer.

To be honest, I wasn't hopeful of seeing dragonflies because it was too windy, and though warm, not steaming hot.

It was a wellie walk as the area is low lying by the River Soar. Rain earlier in the week had made the ground muddy although it had dried out significantly by today - except where the cows had been driven through soft mud, which made the going very rough. Len and I gave up at that point since I don't have good balance and progress was reduced to something slower than a snail.

We did see a male and a female banded demoiselle damselfly. I was carrying my 150mm macro lens, but not tripod. Therefore it goes without saying that most of the shots were blurred. I did get two reasonable photos of both the male and female. This is the male.

We also saw Tubular water-dropwort, Oenanthe fistulosa, which is quite rare, and poisonous. I would never have noticed it if it hadn't been pointed out.

After abandoning the walk, we refreshed ourselves at Stonehurst Farm along the road, where a 20 horsepower Austin Sports Tourer was on display. 

Then we had to stop at WEDC so that Len could pick up some more exam scripts to mark.

He's washed Basil, who is now racing through the house, presumably to get dry.

We've decided to have garlic prawns tonight, rather than on Sunday evening.