Look Out Hornsea, I've Got My Shorts On!

 All of a sudden the world looks a different place. Warmth and golden sunshine have dragged my shorts out of their winter sojourn and are gracing my legs as we speak 🤣🤣

 

 The past week I have spent more time perusing insects than I have looking for birds, in an attempt to catch up on the chilly weeks lost without seeing much insect life at all.

 

The best news of the week came when I saw a damselfly emerging from our pond - the first one since we installed it last year👍 

Emerging damselfly in our pond

The usual emergence of hundreds, if not thousands, of damselflies at the Mere started on Thursday. Most of them are Common Blue Damselflies, but I saw two Azure Damselflies at the hide and had a Blue-tailed at home.

Common Blue Damselfly with breakfast (moth I think)

Azure Damselfly

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Butterflies have powered into the air along the length of the south side footpath! I'd already seen Comma, Holly Blue, Peacock, Comma, Large White and several Painted Lady - add to those Common Blue, Green-veined White and Small White.

Small White

Common Blue

Many different kinds of insect have been seen and photographed around Hornsea in the last week - here is a selection:

Zebra Spiders

Alder Fly

Wasp Beetle

Common Carpet moth

Leafhopper

On the birding front the week has been largely quiet then got interesting yesterday with a Purple Heron found at the hide and a couple of Hobby there too - both year firsts for me. No pics of either I'm afraid as a schoolboy error on my part meant I saw the birds but with a dead battery in my camera!

 

 Some good views of other, more common birds though:

Little Egret close to the hide

Marsh Harrier

Greenfinch wheezing

Chaffinch

Greylag/Canada Goose hybrid

Lesser Whitethroat in song

Pied Wagtail

No new wild flowers to report unusually, but there has been so much other stuff to see I'm not surprised if I missed one or two.