Number 43 - so soon!

Examination of the few Odonata records from BK on the national database over the last few days, threw up the shocking discovery that Ischnura pumilio is present in BK! I have presumably been overlooking them because armed with this knowledge I found one this morning at Klarningen.

Mmmm! Orange! A fresh female Ischnura pumilio, another Swedish dragonfly tick (my third this week!).

The black 'hour-glass' shape on the orange pronotum (between thorax and head) is a good diagnostic feature of pumilio.

Anyway to start at the beginning, I nipped out for another pre-breakfast session to Klarningen this morning. Grey overcast skies as usual lately, but not a breath of wind just after dawn. Dragonflies were surprisingly active and as well as the splendid pumilio I found the Coenagrion pulchellum pictured below, and plenty of Aeshna mixta.

Broken humeral stripes and the weird 'Y' S2 marking reveal the identity of this Coenagrion pulchellum.

Plenty of birds about at Klarningen too. The main bit of water had a flock of at least 87 teal, a scattering of mallard and my first pintail (5) at the site. With this many birds around, I decided to leave out the southern section and just walk the northern half. Eventual totals for the two hour session were; lapwing (40), dunlin (1), ruff (4), snipe (6), spotted redshank (1), greenshank (2), common sandpiper (1) and wood sandpiper (15). Tree pipits and yellow wagtails were much in evidence overhead, a redstart was calling along the river and the access track had four wheatear and two whinchat.

After breakfast I checked out Vasaltheden hoping for more dragonfly action, but it started to drizzle. I poked about a bit looking hard at the wetter parts of the site, just one red-backed shrike and three yellow wagtails surrendered.

In the afternoon Mrs B and I dropped in quickly at Malen and had a neat little gull (1K) feeding along the shoreline and in the distance behind another at Stensåns mynning in neighbouring Halland.