Tophill

I decided on half a day at Tophill Low today with the North Marsh offering such goodies as Water Rail, Kingfisher, Grass Snake, Water Vole and if really lucky Otter, however it always looks good on paper and the reality was none of the above were showing. I gave it a bit of time seeing a small party of young Tits and Willow Warblers move through, a Little Egret fly along the river and a Marsh Frog swim across the pool but that was about it, I decided to have a walk to the new area they’ve created, Helmpholme Meadow and there were plenty of Insects buzzing around in the morning sunshine including Gatekeeper and Marbled White Butterflies plus Southern Hawker, Black Tailed Skimmer, Four Spotted Chaser and Ruddy Darter Dragonflies, at the new area a small pool there hosted a couple more Little Egrets but nothing else, looks good for the future though, on the way back I checked out a couple of grassy mounds and managed to find some Grass Snakes basking on them so at least I got one target species in the end.

a family of Grey Partridges on the approach road

young Willow Warblers

Ringlet

Gatekeeper

Marbled White

Ruddy Darter

a couple of Little Egrets on the new pool

a young Grass Snake

a bigger one on the next mound

popped his head out

difficult to get him all in, the head's in the bottom left corner