I Don't like Mondays.....

Yesterday evening I made my first visit in over a month to the Gravel Pits. I was amazed at how much the vegetation had grown in that time.
It was very quiet on the bird front with the usual herd of Canada Geese on the East Lake along with a couple of Coots. There were a pair of Bullfinches calling near the gate.
Most of the activity this evening came from Butterflies and Dragonflies. I saw a Gatekeeper on the wing but it wouldn't settle for me to photograph it. There were also lots of these Cinnabar Moth larvae feeding on the Ragwort.

Cinnabar Moth Larvae (Tyria jacobaeae)

I walked on down to the hide pausing only to photograph this Dragonfly.

I'm a bit vague on Dragonfly identification and can't find this in my limited reference books. I also saw male and female Common Blue Damselflies.

Common Blue Damselfly-Female (Enallagma cyathigerum)

Common Blue Damselfly-Male

I also saw a very obliging Small Skipper, I'm usually chasing these around waiting for them to land to get a photo and failing, this one was quite happy for me to get as close as I wanted.

Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris)

I walked back towards the gate and scanned over the West Lake. The water levels were as high as I'd seen them after all the rain of the past weeks.
The only birds in evidence were a few Swallows skimming the surface and a Juvenile Grey Heron.
As I got near to the East Lake again I 'flushed' a Sparrowhawk from the grass verge, watching it as it flew away from me and over the trees. Almost at the same time two Green Woodpeckers flew in and the female pitched up on a fence post allowing me to get a few shots before they both followed the Sparrowhawk over the treeline.

Green Woodpecker (Picus vividis)

I'd had a text from Andy G just as I was leaving for the Gravel Pits about going for a beer, so I now headed into Chard to pick him up.
We decided to go to the Yarcombe Inn just over the Devon border, but upon arriving were a bit vexed to find it shut on Monday's !. We then thought we'd try the Candlelight only to find the same outcome. Third time lucky as we went to the Eagle Tavern wondering what ales we might find there. We were glad to see that they had an Adnams ale on, but 'Lighthouse' at 3.4% although quite refreshing was otherwise unremarkable.
We then moved onto the Bell at Broadway noticing that the Five Dials was also shut. The bell is a Wells and Young's pub ,but unfortunately the Young's beer was off so we both settled for a Courage Directors.
It was quite a pleasant evening to sit outside a pub with a beer in hand watching Swifts 'screaming' overhead.
Perhaps Mondays aren't so bad after all !