Hobby at Amwell, 14th May 2023

Bit of a catch up following a welcome week in Rome! Not much birding there apart from this Hooded Crow and Yellow-legged Gull with a nice backdrop of the Colosseum.

Amwell has been fairly quiet bird wise, with most of the Summer visitors setting down now. Two Hobbies were feeding over Hollycross fairly high up but one ventured slightly closer.

A slow start to the Dragonfly season with brief views of Hairy Dragonflies and Four-spotted Chaser but Damselflies are emerging including this immature female Common Blue.

Also Red-eyed Damselfly (teneral male)

Azure Damselfly

And finally, Blue-tailed Damselfly

Butterflies have started to show including Peacock, Holly Blue and Orange Tip.

And always good to see some smaller creatures!

But certainly the star of the show was the Cuckoo who has moved down from Easneye Woods to the Reserve. He was calling constantly and moving around but almost impossible to locate until he flew across the path near the White hide.

Strange to think he will be heading back to Africa in the next few weeks, job done!