Ferry Wood Walk - 2

Walking the beaches of places like Littleferry can be a cheerless business while we continue to come across dead birds washed up with each tide. It's nothing like as bad as we've seen, but yesterday we found half a dozen, mostly, like this one, guillemots, the species locally which always seems to suffer worst. We can't tell whether they've died of bird flu or other causes, and we have to bear in mind that there have always been dead birds washed up along beaches, but not, I feel, in these numbers.

We walked back towards the car along the links where the most noticeable absentees were, once again, the butterflies. We also ought to be seeing more day-flying moths, the burnets in particular: we haven't seen one this year, though we were away for much of late June and July when they're on the wing.

Happily, as we walked back through Ferry Wood and diverted to the small Loch Unez, the dragon- and damselflies were on the wing. The first we spotted was a very smart female black darter, followed by....

....what I think is a male emerald damselfly and....

....although the thorax is a different colour, what also looks like a male emerald.

While we were watching the damselflies along the margins of the loch a couple of much larger dragonflies were patrolling the now very overgrown central part. They were practically impossible to catch on camera but, from what we saw, I think they were common hawkers.

With such a dearth of butterflies, it was a relief to see both dragon- and damselflies in good numbers.