July 2025

July at Ardley began with an extraordinary count of 26 Little Ringed Plovers split between the ERF lagoon and the adjacent quarry. I had evenings of 15, 19 and 19, before JFT hit the crazy heights of 26! I still can't quite believe it, and it seems hard to explain. I think it can only be a perfect storm of the resident breeders and juveniles being joined by a glut of post-breeding birds passing through. But for that number to mass at an innocuous site like Ardley seems a freak event. Numbers quickly reduced again and gradually petered out by the end of the month. As it often seems to do, Ardley throws up some great records.

Numbers of Green Sandpipers gradually increased to a maximum of 8 so far. The lagoon is looking perfect, so as always the hope is for some more good waders as the Autumn approaches. Other than Common Sandpipers and Lapwings, there hasn't been too much on the wader-front. A Curlew early in the month was a nice record and the first time I've ever seen one on the deck here. A lone Dunlin towards the end of the month was something different at least. Hopefully August and September will be as fruitful as last year.

The metal railings in front of the lagoon make photographing birds in flight even more of a challenge.

It is still possible to see the dinosaur footprints on the base of the quarry viewed from the footpath.

Towards the end of the month a colour-ringed Yellow-legged gull appeared on the quarry on two occasions. This is the second colour-ringed YLG I've seen here this year. This one looks likely to be a German bird having consulted the colour-ringing website. I have sent off the details so will hopefully hear back at some point. An adult Common Gull passed through at the end of the month which was an unexpected July record with juvs being more likely than adult this time of year.

A Lesser Emperor dragonfly was a nice record at the end of the month and a repeat of one last year at Ardley. 

Away from Ardley, Blenheim provided most of the interest this month with the clear highlight being the discovery of a couple of Norfolk Hawker dragonflies (detailed in a previous blog post). I visited a week later with Stephen Burch, but unfortunately for him they were no longer present. Whether they'd expired or been driven off by the other resident species, who knows? I will certainly be alert to check that area a little earlier next year. There are a decent number of Lesser Emperors still about so I will try and make the most of them while they last.

Brown Hawker

Emperor

Willow Emerald Damselfly

Southern Hawker

It has been nice to enjoy more butterflies this summer compared with last year. I had a nice view of a couple of Purple Hairstreaks at Blenheim one morning. One of them gave me the opportunity to use the pre-capture feature on my camera. This means the camera records images in a buffer when the shutter is half-pressed. Once the shutter is fully pressed it saves the previous half second's worth of images, allowing you to capture the moments you otherwise wouldn't be quick enough to react to normally. Insects or birds taking off is the obvious thing to try and get. The image below is a series of three photos of the butterfly taking off which I've then stacked together in post-processing. Focus stacking is the other processing technique I've been playing with recently. The camera has a nice feature to enable this. The images above of the Emperor Dragonfly and Willow Emerald Damselfly are images created using this technique. The benefit is that if done correctly, the whole of the subject is in focus. This is often difficult to achieve in a single image because a shallow depth of field inevitably means some of the subject will be out of focus. 

Small Copper

Stowe Gardens near Buckingham is a favourite spot for a family walk, and a visit in late July produced great views of Spotted Flycatchers at several points around the lakes. As always, they are a delight to watch given how confiding they can be.

A few more photos from the month...