Return to Bough Beech

Our trip out this week was a return to Bough Beech near Sevenoaks. I was returning for two reasons. One the local dragonfly recorder had asked for photographs of the Brilliant Emerald Dragonfly I had seen last week in order to confirm the record (I hadn’ t managed any last week) and secondly because a Western Osprey had been hanging around the Reservoir all weekend.

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Our first sightings, however, were of a human kind as we met up with Andrew and Nicole, who we hadn’t seen since before lockdown and so it was good chance to catch up with them. They directed me to a Little Ringed Plover they had found on the edge of the reservoir and also described another wader which they had seen briefly in a channel in the vegetation on the north pool before it had disappeared from sight into the vegetation.

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After they had left, I got another brief view of the mystery wader and although not totally sure thought it was probably Green Sandpiper. Amongst the other birds on the reservoir today were Common Terns and Grey Wagtail as well as the usual selection of Ducks, Swans and Geese. A female Mandarin Duck with 12 chicks was a pleasant sight.

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I then decided to walk up to the Oast house to see if I could get the photographs of Brilliant Emerald. What a difference a week makes! the temperature was about 10 degrees lower than last week and whereas then there were about 40 insects from 5 species present, not a single one was to be seen today. I did hear Common Whitethroat and Chiffchaff and got excellent views of the resident Kingfisher.

Back at the Reservoir, I though I would give the mystery wader one more go. Imagine my surprise when I looked into the channel and there it was, a Green Sandpiper, sitting out on a rock in plain view. I tried to get a photo but the hedge vegetation has grown so high that I couldn’t get a clear shot before it wandered off into the vegetation and out of view.

A good end to our trip.