Afternoon tea...

Today was the annual King's Dyke bug hunt, led by Pete. But unfortunately this year the turn-out was rather low. Not sure whether the grey clouds put people off, or whether the schools didn't publicise the event very well. Nevertheless everyone seemed to have a good time, especially when the sun made an appearance and encouraged some of the showier butterflies and dragonflies to appear.

There was only one minor disaster, when a child who was pond-dipping fell into the lake. The water was only about 20cm deep, but somehow he landed face down and couldn't seem to get himself out, giving everyone quite a scare. His Mum went in and fished him out, and he was soon safely on the shore again.

I was quite surprised that he didn't just stand up, but maybe he wasn't used to water. We always had ponds in our garden and all three sons fell in at least once when they were toddlers. They were also taken to endless pits and quarries and very soon learnt to be careful and to get themselves out of shallow water. I should add that they were always supervised, but we took an active policy of taking them to risky places at an early age and teaching them how to be careful.

I didn't manage to take many photographs, as I was helping to catch insects and identify other people's capture, but I rather liked this image of a Blue-tailed Damselfly Ischnura elegans, feasting on a fly while perched on an old reed stem.