Upton Fen: a walk with the BVCG

At around 9.00am, neighbour Sue and I drove to Upton and set up the projector / laptop etc for my Odonata presentation. Following an hour or so talk about dragons and damsels, we moved from Upton Village Hall (a really super venue!) to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust's reserve at Upton Fen. After a certain amount of shuffling around of cars (the car park here is tiny!) we set off on a forty minute dash around the 'small circuit', taking in a variety of habitats.

Despite the 28 degree temperature (or perhaps because of it!) we recorded plenty of the expected odonatids: Norfolk Hawker, Four-spotted Chaser, Black-tailed Darter, Azure, Large Red and Common Blue damsels and so on. One of the group found a teneral male Common Emerald that caused some excitement: first of the year...

Lots of Swallowtails - we saw at least a dozen - as well as Speckled Wood, Brimstone and Painted Lady. Lots of orchids too: all in all a great morning in pleasant company!