Thursday 5 May 2022

Love is in the Air - John Paul Young

 With news of eggs having hatched on the main pond it was lucky, perhaps, that there were few, 6 Species x 11 Insects, to delay us with but one addition to the Year List of note

BRIGHT-LINE BROWN-EYE
while the new arrivals,
not exactly 'mind blowing',
a gaggle of c7
CANADA GEESE
GOSLINGS
About to leave, out of the corner of my eye things turned quite dramatically to a
Tale of the Unexpected
preening away for all it was worth
a spectacular male
MANDARIN DUCK
(see epilogue below)
Expectations of other such things were considered possible, but unlikly, we had certainly had our share until just 200 yards later at the
SMALL POND
the new parent
MOORHENs
were introducing their new arrivals
to the wider world while at coffee time this
GREEN ORB-WEAVER SPIDER
very nearly lowered itself into the boiling brew below!

Epilogue

While the Mandarin does very occasionally visit the Moors River, where it has bred on at least a single occasion, it is extremely rare across the rest of the Recording Area. So much so that there has been but a single sighting across the whole of the farm during my time here at the same location and of note for another, quite different reason. The record on the 31/07/13 involved this

Male Bird
  in company with these c2
females while coinciding with my purchase of the Land Owner's car, the day when the
RANGE ROVER CHO4 OKS
was handed over at the same location to become the
STRANGER!