The Juvenile Birder

Back at Spurn! We arrived at Spurn at around 8:00am after getting a lift from Dave. We parked at Kilnsea Wetlands and immediately made our way towards Beacon Ponds where a Stilt Sandpiper (which was a lifer) was reported. We reached a small huddle of birders and a kind birder let us view the Stilt Sandpiper through his scope. We then got onto the Stilt Sandpiper in our scopes and I managed to get a few digiscoped images of it through Dave's scope. The Stilt Sandpiper  seemed to be an adult and was hanging around with two Dunlin . It was rotating between both sides of New Bank but spent most of its time on the Kilnsea Wetlands side. While watching the Stilt Sandpiper, we also noticed a few Yellow Wagtails , a Sanderling , two Greenshanks and a very showy and dark-backed Common Sandpiper .  We then made our way back to the car where we met Bob Eckersley. While talking to him, we noticed a  Hobby hunting hirundines just across the field, from where we were standing. I could also hear

Dragonfly Hunt! We arrived at 10:30am to meet the kind Eddie Urbanski in order for him to tour us round his patch. Once we arrived had arrived at his patch, which was Cors Geirch NNR, the first thing I spotted was a Painted Lady , followed by a moth which Kevin (Eddie's friend) identified as a Straw Dot . We then started wading through a marshy bit of the site and almost immediately, Eddie pointed out a male Keeled Skimmer . Unfortunately, it flew away instead of landing for a record shot, but little did I know, that this would be one of many to be seen that day. We continued walking through the marsh when Kevin said he had a Bog Hoverfly. I searched the area he saw it in and spotted a male Keeled Skimmer sitting right in front of me, waiting to be photographed. We then walked through a dryer area of the wetland where Kevin pointed out a Bog Hoverfly ( Sericomyia Silentis )   nectaring right besides us, allowing for a perfect record shot. We then started searching the pony dung in

A Cumbrian Specialty! We arrived at Smardale Gill NNR at around 8:00am in hopes of seeing a rare butterfly. We were told by a butterfly enthusiast, last week, that he saw lots of them a few days ago just before the viaduct, so we made our way there. Along the way, we met a man who told us he had seen two just across the viaduct, and that it needed to be sunnier in order for the butterflies to emerge before the viaduct. Once we got across the viaduct, I spotted a Meadow Brown and a Silver Y moth, before spotting a dark butterfly nectaring on some knapweed. It was indeed our target butterfly of the day, the Scotch Argus ! At first, it was flying high up the bank with its wings always closed, however, after a bit of waiting, it decided to come down and started fluttering between our feet, sometimes landing on our shoes! It also landed a few times right in front of us with its wings wide open. We think it was a female as it was large and had big, vibrant orange spots.  Suddenly, I spotted