Juvenile chiffchaff

This morning I went for a sunny walk along the river - after three intensive days of fieldwork I was ready for its palette of restful greens. The cuckoo was calling for most of my visit, and there were plenty of fledgling birds, including a flock of foraging chiffchaffs. Later I saw an adult chiffchaff who'd found an outrageously large green caterpillar and was beating it to death on a wooden bridge (see extra).
I've never seen so many Scarce Chaser dragonflies - the males were indulging in aerial battles all along the river margin, but most seemed to be relatively unscathed. There were also plenty of Red-eyed Damselflies perching on the Yellow Water-lily pads. And of course I couldn't resist a bit of botany - I spotted two clumps of the highly poisonous Hemlock Water-dropwort which is a locally rare species around Peterborough.


After a cup of coffee I returned the hire car that I'd been using since last Friday. In the afternoon I was supposed to be taking Alex to one of his local clients, but when I switched the engine of our car on a red stop light came on, so he had to cancel. It did give me time to plant out a few things in the garden, now that the soil is finally properly damp.