A hot and sunny day here on the east coast, with plenty of interest and a welcome sting in the tail. It began with a flock of seven Little Egrets coming in off the sea and over the house first thing (perhaps a local record count) and a juvenile Goldeneye at the Dams (very unusual), continued with decent wader passage over the sea and lots of butterflies and dragonflies on the wing - and culminated in the finding of this cracking Red-veined Darter hunting at the Tip late this afternoon.
Stoked to find this rare migrant from southern Europe here on the patch, with just a handful of previous records; doubly stoked to get half decent shots - while it often does the job for birds, my pretty basic non-pro DSLR and fixed 400ml lens don't exactly lend themselves to close-up macro / detailed wildlife photography, but just occasionally persistence pays off.
With the Death's-head Hawk-moth a couple of weeks back, I'm starting to think my luck is in with non-avian rarities, and maybe it's a message to cast the net a little further generally.....
Ruddy Darters from the Dams yesterday, for comparison:
