Brandon Marsh NR/Rugby - 7th July 2012

I visited Brucey this weekend in Rugby to drop off my pet snakes before my trip to Sweden next week, and to visit him in general. We took a trip to Brandom Marsh which is Brucey's local patch where we went on Thursday evening. We saw Hobby, Green Sandpiper, Kingfisher, breeding Common Terns and the best bird being a female/immature Ruff, which isn't a bad bird for an inland site.

The main reason for going to Brandon, apart from being shown around Brucey's patch, was to look for Odonata and Reptiles as it is a good site for Grass Snake, Slow Worm and several odonata species. We managed to see lots of the above Red-eyed Damselfly, Azure Damselfly, Common Blue Damselfly, Blue-tailed Damselfly, Large Red Damselfly, Banded Demoiselle and Brown Hawker. The Red-eyed was a new species for me and was great to see in such good number and interspersed with it's lookalikes.
Butterflies were made up of Ringlet, Meadow Brown, Comma, Red Admiral and Green-veined White.

Rabbit - There were loads of rabbits around the reserve including lots of small juveniles including this very photogenic individual.

Volucella pellucens - A very large Hoverfly species that is found throughout Britain, but is the most obliging hoverfly I have witnessed in flight. They usually provide 1 second of hover and then move away from you, whereas this one provided 10+ close range hovers.

Also on Thursday night, I watched this above 2nd summer large gull which I believe to be a Yellow-legged Gull. I would be 100% certain of the ID if the mantle was a slight darker shade of grey. I will hopefully get the ID sorted over the next day or so.