Saturday - Big Waters

Saturday and the first thing on view at Big Waters was a Male Sparrowhawk pursuing a Kingfisher right outside the hide, it did get away but was only seen once again during the day when it flew down the other side of the pond.  Most birds were up the West end of the pond sheltering from the wind, these included a dozen or so Wigeon, several Pochard, a pair of Gadwall, 80+ Mallard and lots of Teal.  The 3 Great Crested Grebe kept their distance and even when the Otter made an appearance they just kept pottering around whilst the rest of the birds that were pottering around headed up towards the scrape.

The arrival of 36 Greylag Geese then perked things up a bit

and no sooner than I had said "this is gonna upset the swans" then they took off from the far end of the pond and landed right nest to the flock of the Geese.

The 2 Swans then singled out a Greylag and chased it over to the middle and eventually forced it to fly off.  They then returned to the flock of Greylags and just swam round them as though to say "Hey this is our pond and we are the big guys here".  Then everything settled back to normal.   A Buzzard flew over the hide so I went outside to watch it and all the birds flew out of the Feeding Station which dosent normally happen when someone walks past so after a couple of minutes I went back in and there was a Sparrowhawk just sitting in a tree in the Feeding Station.   It flew off as soon as I approached the window so off I went outside again and there was now 3 Buzzards drifting around.

Alan J and I then went for a walk round and at the public end we encountered quite a few Dragonflies, most of them were Common Darters but we did encounter a Southern Hawker which chomped away on a Bee allowing a couple of pics.

We also came across a Speckled Wood which whilst not unknown at Big Waters is not a frequent visitor.  It was Alans only 2nd sighting there and was in exactly the same place as the first.

Dont know what the following Dragonfly is - any suggestions ?