28 July 2014: A couple of hours on my local patch.

I have not been down my local patch for a while now so I thought I would spent a quiet late afternoon/evening down there, as much to see if the hide had been rebuilt as anything else - though a colleague had recently seen several Redstart down there. Just before I left home I noticed this Song Thrush on the garage roof looking very carefully about. There were no youngsters in sight so I wondered if she was feeding a second brood somewhere.

 Anyway, on to the local patch at Coombe Hill Meadows, a Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust reserve. It was very hot and very quiet. Just as I reached the scrapes a small flock of Lapwing took to the air and I almost didn't lift the camera for them - however, I did and was glad as I saw my first Snipe of the new season.

 Then I had some fun trying to photograph some flying butterflies who were obviously trying to make friends - I think they may be Green Veined Whites, but I'm not sure. If anyone can help I would be grateful for an ID.

 The hide over the scrapes (that was destroyed in the winter floods) has not yet been completely rebuilt so it is very difficult to look out onto thescrapes because of the height of the vegetation. So I took a stroll round to the long pool hide. It was clear that they had recently cut all the hay in the meadows and were busy turning it quote regularly to dry - I wonder if that explained an absence of a lot of wildlife as well as the late afternoon heat. From the hode ove rthe long pool there was a Grey Heron

 and a Little Egret

as well as the ubiquitous Mallerd, this one headed directly towards the hide.

 On my return journey to the car I was treated to a few glimpses of a wandereing family of Common Whitethroat feeding on the canal banks. Of course it wasn't long before they realised I was there and took to cover.

An enjoyable walk, even though there was not much wildlife about at the time - I really think I need to get there early in the morning and things should start to get better on the scrapes with the return of teh waders, especially if they fix the hide(-:).