Old Red-eyes Is Back - The Beautiful South

The is no doubting the volume of water that has fallen on the country over the last few weeks, but if there is an up-side to this the climate has been unseasonably mild. On the strength of that, and with a little coaxing from my mentor, it was decided to run a single Moth Trap last night with a 'posative' result. OK, only a single Insect but from tiny Acorns mighty Oaks do grow. There perched on the top of the very first egg tray was our first 'identifiable' Moth a

CHESTNUT

The distinction is made between 'identifiable' as there were c2
Moths flying around the security lights just a few nights ago.

Again the forecaster foretold of more precipitation and arriving at Longham Lake there were signs of it all around me.

The occasional RAINBOW looked beautiful arcing the lake,

but on 'reflection' this looked slightly better.

PIED WAGTAIL

Still the odd stand of FUNGI about.

This is the 'fence line' in the meadows to the north of the lakes.

Prospects of finer weather and the onset of Spring the first
CATKINS
bursting through.

These images certainly give a false impression of the prevailing weather conditions as I arrived at the furthest point from shelter. However, the rain bearing cloud setting in from the south west missed me by inches as the village of Longham took the full brunt of the downpour. Pheeeewww! This

BLACK-NECKED GREBE

which has been here a few weeks now has been seen on every

visit so far this year, but today was the closest to land thus far.

Fantastic views through the telescope of those piercing 'red eyes'.

Here comes another soaking but luckily the car was close at hand
'Gimme Shelter' - The Rolling Stones.
After the rain

GREY HERON

the anglers friends
CORMORANT

GREAT CRESTED GREBE

and CHAFFINCH

Once again not even a tweet from a Reed Bunting which must be a record-breaker for this very common bird, never having waited 18 days into any year to record one! However, just when it was thought today would be another 'blank' for the Year List, a wander down to Janet's brother's paddocks produced a

 BARN OWL* (Wiki image)

where between us we found them breeding last year.

Unfortunately, I have never photographed this beautiful creature.

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