Sunday afternoon at Cotswold Water Park

Initially we headed to the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve at Lower Moor.

From the first hide dragonflies were very much the order of the day with Emperor, four-spotted chaser and brown hawker putting on an amazing aerial show. 

Four-spotted chaser

The lake was covered with blue damselflies, no doubt a mix of common blue and azure. It’s worth looking at the common blue link to see a pair properly forming the heart shape!

Birds were a bit thin on the grounds, but we were lucky enough to watch a common tern fishing and see a family of mute swan move effortlessly across the lake.

We then worked our way around the edge of the lake and saw signs that otter were active in the area.

The next lake had Canada goose, mallard and great crested grebe all nicely on show.

The next dragonfly species seen was a couple of cracking male black-tailed skimmers.

A male chiffchaff was singing from the top of a willow tree, but managed to stay hidden from us.

We then moved onto Clattinger Farm where we saw a number of butterfly species: meadow brown, ringlet, marbled white, large white, large skipper and small skipper.

Male marbled white

We also saw, smelt and tasted a number of plants including: pepper saxifrage, lady’s bedstraw, betony, black knapweed, greater knapweed, salad burnet, greater burnet, devil’s-bit scabious, bird’s-foot trefoil and common spotted orchid. 

On our way back to the picnic area, a brief stop at Twitcher’s Gate produced coot, greylag goose, cormorant, herring gull, lesser black-backed gull and more common tern.