Close encounters of the nice kind!

Westhay Moor

Somerset was so brilliant, not to mention warm, dry and sunny. We went up Glastonbury Tor, lovely views, Glastonbury is such a cool place full of weird and interesting shops and folk. We walked round Cheddar Gorge, so lovely, but very hard going especially with a sore knee! Stonehenge was really a day to remember too! 

Now for the wow factor!!

We saw all sorts of wildlife  including about 60 cranes, flying – not as close as we`d have liked but we saw them! A great white egret, and fabulous views of a water rail from about 7ft away. 

But the best for me was the following:

We were walking around the reed beds in Westhay Moor http://www.somersetwildlife.org/westhay_moor.html   one of the Many nature reserves surrounding us!  As usual the dragonflies were so numerous and all over the place. I saw one perched on the reeds, got really close and was wondering why it hadn`t flown away, when we realised it was stuck through a split in one of the leaves, at first we thought it was dead, then it moved slightly, so we clambered over the fence through the reeds and very carefully opened up the split in the leaf, it sat on my hand for a good few minutes, then gradually started moving it’s wings again. When it finally flew away it brought tears to my eyes!  Wow! what a moving experience!

Cherry and Hawker

Male Migrant Hawker

Thanks to Cherry for sharing her unforgettable experience. And there's a link here, amazingly enough Liverpool RSPB were admiring a female Migrant Hawker at RSPB  Blacktoft sands three weeks ago and 240 miles away! Bit far for a blind date 

http://liverpoolrspb.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-marshland-was-alive-with-sound-of.html


Interested in Dragonflies: why not become a member of the British Dragonfly Society (BDS) - join and help conserve these fantastic creatures and their wetland habitat:

http://www.british-dragonflies.org.uk/content/membership

Laura