Category: David

Rings of purple flowers on teazles. These on plants growing by the pool in Compton Park.

Banded demoiselle damselflies. These are all males – the females are green rather than blue. One every few yards near the water of the canal near Compton, hoping a female would come along.

Vivernum (guelder rose) berries, partially ripe, turning from green to red. These on one of the bushes at the back of Compton Lock.

This is probably a migrant hawker – unlike yesterday’s brown hawker, there’s a couple of similar-looking species which need a close view to be sure of distinguishing. It was patrolling a territory over the canal at Compton, right next to the brown hawker’s.

Bulrush flowers at Compton Park pool. While the individual flowers look attractive, the plants are taking over and choking the pool, which was only created a few years ago as a water feature when part of the park was covered in a new housing estate. Since then, nothing appears to have been done to maintain the pool.

Hawker dragonflies aren’t very big. They do fly fast, changing direction seemingly at random as they patrol their territories. This brown hawker was on the wing over the canal between Compton and Wi9ghtwick.