Confident

I went to Farmoor today, where the birding was pretty poor, to be honest, but I had a highly enjoyable time anyway. Had I not ducked out yesterday because of the forecast rain, I might have seen an Arctic Skua and half a score of Common Scoters - though it's equally possible that I'd have seen nothing at all through the bouncing rain and hail that drenched everyone who did risk it, and gone home with a damaged camera. One of several birders with whom I had interesting chats today told me that it was a Farmoor storm that did for his birding scope a few years ago: when it rains at Farmoor it's very wet rain indeed.

One of my other conversations today, just after I'd arrived, was with a chap who pointed out a Yellow-legged Gull and a couple of Lesser Black-backs, and taught me a few things about gull identification - a subject I've always shied away from because it's notoriously tricky. Further chat revealed that this man is also connected with the British Dragonfly Society, and he gave me some very helpful pointers on good dragon sites in Oxfordshire. One of which, it turns out - despite the confidently negative statement I made after my previous visit - is Farmoor. I didn't know before today that there's a water meadow called Pinkhill Reserve between the western edge of the reservoir and the river Thames, and also some small, well-vegetated ponds.

One of the few birds I'd hoped to see that was still present today was this Turnstone, which was pottering about on the causeway shore of F1. Turnstones are quite small sandpipers - about the size of a Starling or a Great Spotted Woodpecker - and like the Dunlin they tend to attract uncomplimentary descriptions: stocky, dumpy, chunky, and so on. But my own description would focus on their attitude, which is outgoing and confident. The last time I saw some was at Aberystwyth, where I sat on the rocky beach while a group of them noodled around in front of me, turning over stones to look for the invertebrates and crustaceans they prefer to eat. Today I spent a short while trying to creep up on this one unobserved, but I soon realised that I was wasting my time and energy, because it simply didn't care about people. There was another female photographer on the causeway at the same time, and after realising that we'd seen each other up at the owl field we got into conversation, while the Turnstone wandered over to the section of shoreline just below us, lay down, tucked its head under its wing, and went to sleep. 

Having heard about my interest in dragonflies, my new acquaintance offered to show me the way to the wetland and the dragon pools, where we also met up by chance with the chap who'd told me about them in the first place. The three of us stood chatting on a footbridge for quite a while, with Southern, Migrant, and Brown Hawkers and Common and Ruddy Darters whizzing about over the pool beneath us, and were having such a good time that we only moved on when the sky darkened, and it suddenly looked as though the weather was about to turn Farmoorish. 

My second photo tonight was taken from the hide at the wetland, Pinkhill Reserve. I thought at the time that it was an Emerald Damselfly, but having got it up onto a big screen I can see from the thoracic markings and the lack of any blue pruinescence that it's a male Willow Emerald. With hindsight I think I should have realised this at the time, just from the relative lengths of his abdomen and his thorax, but the Willow Emerald is still a pretty new species to me. I hope to get better at spotting them as time goes on.