Lots of farming activity tonight with the cereal fields being cut ahead of the change in the weather, 100s of swallows and sand martins, incuding lots of young birds, swooping over the freshly cut stubbles, feasting on the insects that have been disturbed. Been an excellent year for insects in general after the dire situation of 2024. Wall butterflies seem to be having a good year and plenty of dragonflies zipping around mostly black-tailed skimmers, a Red-veined darter was a new one for me here (it appears to be a newly emerged male so they must have recently colonised). Plenty of wagtails as well in the fields, at least 6 Yellow wagtails in and around the fields on the southside and later going to roost around the mere with some pieds.
The rains will be very welcome with the big scrape drying out day by day, the 30-40 coot are just ankle deep at the moment. Something put up the gulls, duck and 2 Green sandpipers nothing that I could see so most likely a peregrine, and what I thought was a whimbrel flying in until it gave a curlew call, one of Skomers youngsters maybe. Interesting to see what the rain pushes in over the next few days.
