A dragon at Seaforth and 3 Wood Sands at Martin Mere

For the third week running we started off the day at Seaforth and ended it at Martin Mere. Seaforth was fairly quiet, but we did see this magnificent Common Hawker dragonfly.


The close up photo on the right shows not only its amazing eyes, but also most of the features which identify this as Common Hawker, as opposed to Migrant, Southern or even Southern Migrant! The eyes are blue above and brown below, the thorax (side of the body) is brown with two yellow stripes, the antehumeral stripes (the yellow stripes behind the eyes) are long and thin, there is a yellow leading edge to the wing. On the left hand photo, you can also see the "pinched" waist.

At Martin Mere, there were now three Wood Sandpipers showing nicely from the Ron Barker hide, with a Water Rail, two Marsh Harriers and a handful of Ruff.