The Forest of Dean part eight

 The final part of our holiday to the Forest of Dean and I have combined two days into one Blog. The first day saw my wife and I visit Symonds Yat where I took loads of photos of the view on my phone but only a few with the camera and they consisted of a couple of distant Peregrines and a Buzzard. The second day started at New Fancy Viewpoint in the hope of seeing Peregrines and Goshawk we didn’t see either. Then it was on to NT Westbury Court Gardens and finally Soudley Ponds.

A distant Peregrine at Symonds Yat.

A second distant Peregrine.

A distant Buzzard.

Chiffchaff from New Fancy Viewpoint.

A couple of Crossbill from the same place.

Emperor Dragonfly from Westbury Court.

These fish at Westbury Court must be used to being hand fed as they came to the surface the moment anyone walked by.

Bumblebee coming into land.

 Aphids being farmed by Ants for their honeydew.

Green Dock Beetle.

Red Kite above a café that we stopped at to have a coffee.

Red-eyed Damselfly at Soudley Ponds.

Large Red Damselfly with bait.

Pond Skater also with bait.

If you don’t look too closely these images of a young Pied Wagtail catching Damselflies look quite sharp.

Female Mandarin.

Male Mandarin.

Pied Wagtail.

Female Emperor laying eggs.

The same female only this time eating on the wing.

Forest of Dean part seven

 A trip to Slimbridge to see the White-spotted Blue Throat that has been returning to the same place for the last five years. It was always distant and the heat haze didn’t help but it was nice to see it. For me (and this is just a personal observation) Slimbridge is more like a zoo than a nature reserve with ornamental ducks etc. however I still enjoyed the day out. Later that evening I went to visit the Nagshead reserve again in the hope of seeing Wild Boar but alas I was disappointed once again. I did however see some of the birds I had seen on a previous visit.

White-spotted Blue Throat.

Sedge Warbler and Reed Bunting on the same stick (again distant).

Please correct me if I’m wrong but I think this could be a Scarce Chaser.

Red-headed Cardinal Beetle.

The best I could get of this Brimstone Butterfly.

Plant Bugs.

And then there were four.

Larvae of a 7-spot Ladybird.

Larvae and Pupa of a 7-spot Ladybird.

7-spot Ladybird.

Frog Hopper.

Little Egret.

Hawfinch from the Nagshead reserve.

Blackcap.

Goldcrest.

The Forest of Dean part six

 We visited the Nagshead Nature Reserve which has a couple of hides. We found the Lower Hide with little trouble but unfortunately, we didn’t see anything there. The Campbell Hide proved slightly more difficult (for us) to find. We left Lower Hide and headed back to the carpark for a bite of bait. After bait we saw a sign for the Campbell Hide which was pointing to a path which went uphill. However, to be on the safe side we asked a fellow photographer for directions. He said follow the path then turn left. We did this for probably ¾ of a mile and did not find the hide so we turned around and headed back to the carpark. On the way back we saw another photographer and asked him for directions he said as he was going to the hide, he would show us the way. It turned out the hide was no more than fifty yards from the carpark we had walked all that way for nowt. It wasn’t all for nowt after all because when we did finally get into the hide I did not expect to see half the things we saw. It’s because of this that this Blog has more images than I would normally use.

Fox Cub. It didn’t look up once and I didn’t see any adult so I hope it was ok.

Fallow Deer.

Hawfinch.

Spotted Flycatcher.

It’s not often you get Firecrest (only the second time I have seen one) and Spotted Flycatcher in the same frame.

Firecrest.

Goldcrest.

Male Pied Flycatcher.

Female Pied Flycatcher.

Blackcap.

Mistle Thrush.

Song Thrush.

Male Siskin.

Female Siskin.

Treecreeper.

Goldfinch.

Blackbird.

Wren.

Blue Tit.