School's Out!

As it was yet another lovely day once my house jobs were done I took myself off for a walk to Manning's Pit. 

Even though the hum of traffic persisted it was lovely to be walking through fields, cow pats and all though the horse flies were not appreciated. I find that just standing still and watching soon reveals some of the small creatures that live there; grasshoppers, flies, bees, butterflies and hoppers to name a few.

I first went down to the little bridge as sure enough there was a Beautiful Demoiselle (dragon/damsel fly) patrolling the water. Dragonflies are great to photograph as they keep to a regular patrol route and stay still for long periods of time. Today a second male Demoiselle appeared but their flying confrontations were too fast to catch with my camera.

The stream water was crystal clear with muddy looking pondweed growing in it. Trout need cleaner water but the pond skaters on the surface cast visible shadows on the stream bed. It was easy to see their method of moving from the shadows, their front legs do a sort of breast stroke.

 A male Beautiful Demoiselle. 

It was difficult to photograph the butterflies as they were flitting and fluttering around, presumably to confuse predators. I think the sometimes used name - flutterby could have arisen from this type of flying. Wiki disputes this and says they were called butterflies due to their colour but there are only a few yellow butterflies in the UK and many more species of other colours.

As I walked through the field I could hear the sounds of youngsters enjoying themselves in the water. Much screeching and the occasional splash. Generations of local youngsters have enjoyed this natural playground and thankfully for the moment the plans for building houses there has been rejected.  

However when I got down to the ford I could see that this group of young teenagers had been celebrating the end of the school year by throwing paper and other rubbish into the stream (all the white objects in the water). I got a bit closer and very obviously took a photo of the kids. This quickly had them coming up to me asking if I'd taken photos and what was I going to do with them? I decided to take a moderate tone and said that I hoped they would be picking up all their rubbish from the water before leaving. They of course denied being the culprits but said they would clear up. I showed them one of my photos and said in that case I wouldn't need to put the photo on FB.  Hopefully that gave them some incentive to clear up. I then met a dog walker and a runner who had both told the youngsters off about the rubbish. I only wish I'd thought to say that it would be only too easy to identify them from the papers but I didn't think of that until later.

Clouds have rolled in tonight bringing some rain. Hopefully it'll be dry for Green Man Day tomorrow. It turns out that the person organising the marshals this year had not been very organised and about half of the usual volunteers hadn't been contacted yet.