This was a joint MNA / RSPB trip, but although there were 12 MNA members (some with dual membership) there were no RSPB-only people.
It was sunny some of the time, but a fresh breeze kept the temperature down.
Four species of butterfly seen: Meadow Brown, Speckled Wood, Red Admiral and Small Tortoiseshell. Dave H caught and released a Cream-Spot ladybird and a Dock Beetle. We saw one Common Blue Damselfly.
Flowers included both Yellow and White waterlilies, Flag Iris, some late Bluebells still in flower, Ragged Robin and two kinds of Orchid, tentatively identified as Southern Marsh and possibly Common Spotted.
A Blackthorn bush had some very strange growths on the edges of its leaves.
Sid collected some to see what would eventually hatch out, and Dave H later identified them as galls caused by mites (Eriophyes prunispinosae).
There was a pair of Great Crested Grebes with two stripy young, and we watched one of them being fed by an adult. Several Jays were in the trees. A pair of Mute Swans had five cygnets with them.
Both swan parents had leg rings – blue SNA and blue SNB.
At the upper lake, where many Mallards congregate hoping for bread, we saw one very funny-looking duck. Smaller than a Mallard, and looking like it was partly Mandarin.
