Coronation pit, Stewartby. June 2008

An early morning walk round the pit and good numbers of willow warbler and whitethroat were evident. On the water only mute swan and canada geese with young made up the numbers with coot and a couple of great crested grebes thrown in. A group of four oystercatchers circled over noisely a few times but moved on over the railway line.

An unexpected bonus was a grass snake sunning itself on some bramble, as i approached it moved away deeper into the bush but i got a record shot showing the milky eyes, sign of shedding skin due. It was 2ft plus in size.

It was still fairly breezy and not too many butterflies were seen, just a speckled wood to photo. A large family group of noisy long tailed tits were unfazed by my appearance and a couple of these brown/white fluffies' came close.

I eventually found a couple of dragonflies but numbers were not that numerous. A black tailed skimmer posed well while sunning and the only other one seen was a common darter. A nice sight whilst watching these was a lesser whitethroat which was actively moving from one side of the track to the other, joined by another and then what looked like a third,family group?. and only one bird posing for a snapshot.