Burnished Brass
Pale Prominent
I collected as many different species as possible until my pots had run out, and id taken up enough room in the fridge. Here is a selection of some of them.
Dot Moth
Swallowtail Moth
CLEY- Spoonbills were the target bird i wanted to see, and on arrival there were still 2 asleep on the far side of the scrape from the north hide. It had been some time since id last seen spoonbills so the thought of at least 6 today was by far enough.
Slowly they began to move or fly in and group up together With 3 adults and 3 1st summer birds. Most of the time was spent sleeping apart from the occasional preen then.... sleep again.
There were good numbers of sandwich terns ferrying back and forth from fishing trips and a couple of little egrets to add. Quite a gathering of avocets were forming on the north scrape until they all got up calling along with other waders and so time to look up to the sky for predators. 
And sure enough there was, a pair of Arctic skuas flew over the hide and after a short spell proceeded to land on the water a short distance from the north hide. One was a dark morph and the other a cracking pale morph bird. The pale morph then bathed and after a short period decided to up and leave, much to the delight of the black headed gulls.
The dark morph did not depart and decided to stay for some time and was still present when i left, it appeared to lose its balance a couple of times so maybe it was ill. A nice sight to see a pair close in though, and a pale morph. Marsh harrier numbers were at least 5+ and always a part of the views at cley i think.
I didnt have any luck spotting the red necked grebe, i probably needed a scope, and with a lack of birds along the shoreline i decided to try and capture the passing terns back and forth on fishing trips for their young or partners.
What i wanted though was to capture a different compositional shot showing these small waifs in the environment against the sea as a backdrop and not an image filled shot. And also with the opportunity of other species moving along the shoreline.
With the weather taking a change for the worse i decided to stay local and try for some alternative winged creatures.
Alongside my garden i tried locating dragonflies at Sandy RSPB. During a good hour or more of sun early one morning i got some good views of common darter and four spotted chaser and emperor dragonfly. 
In my garden for the second year i had some migrant hawker emerge from my small pond. Although dry overnight the day was wet and miserable and so the hawker had to sit it out until drier weather appeared.
There were plenty of damselflies about and having recently seen my first red eyed damselfly i seemed to be picking them out frequently now. At one pool a four spotted chaser was holding territory and seeing off other four spotteds with a vengance and for some time before returning, i didnt realise they were so territorial.
Once you get your eye in' you seem to pick out the larvae cases still attached to the reed and plant stems, what alien like forms they are too.
I hadnt been out birding with my dad for a while so we both visited snettisham for the morning. The weather started off lovely but soon turned grey and cloudier. There were plenty of swifts moving through first thing.
We headed to the hides to view the terns and waders present on the islands. Along the path i came face to face with a young hare which kept running towards me before darting up the bank unsure of what direction to go.
Whilst scanning through the birds i noticed a Mediteranean gull along the waters edge before it moved up onto the bank amongst black tailed godwits. When my dad had moved to the same hide the gull had moved but on scanning we were to find at least 7 adult and 1 juvenile Med gulls. There were 2s, adult and non breeding adult all present and good views were had. 
A small group of redshank were present further along the water line from the hide we were in and on scanning through i picked out a spanking adult spotted redshank, luckily it came closer to the hide and gave great views, what a cracking bird and the first jet black adult we had seen. 
Local sites were visited near the end of the month with the usual species still present, a pair of yellow wagtails alongside 3 young pied wagtails and corn bunting were showing well and the ever present but flighty linnets kept their distance.
The 3 young pied wagtails visited the small watering hole a few times and when not feeding decided to just sun themselves and doze off on the hard standing amongst the few weeds around the water hole.
A year ago whilst trapping and photographing moths i had a Lime hawkmoth lay some eggs in a specimen container, i set it aside and forgot about it till a day or so later when i noticed tiny caterpillars moving inside. I transferred them to a larger container and knowing they were from the Lime hawkmoth went about searching around my abode for lime trees.
A good row of lime trees were found just around the corner in the church yard and the feeding began. And scoff they did, myself and sarah were continually gathering fresh leaves, and after some time they changed to pupae and buried themselves in the layer of earth in the container. They were then left in my shed until this year and then placed outside under cover. And as of the end of june between 15 and 20 have emerged from the pupae cases and after the final transformation to adult have all flown off.
It was great to see so many emerge and leave and as the photos show the wings upon emerging are small and curled in, within minutes they have grown full size and then dry and rest until night then depart. It is amazing how fast they transform you can see the wings extending larger right infront of your eyes, but so quick are they at emerging from the earth that i never caught one doing so, i looked for movement and nothing and would literally return within minutes to find one hanging from a twig drying out. A lovely experience though.