Butterflies, dragonflies and horse flies

I spent some time this week at Oare and at Elmley. The sun was shining strongly, the heat produced a shimmer in the air and the light made viewing difficult, but there was a cooling breeze that made it lovely just to walk around.

At Oare, quite a few people were looking for the Bonaparte's gull which had been sighted there. I spotted it many times, but strangely it mutated into a black-headed gull each time I zoomed in on it. The general agreement of those who had not spotted it so far was that the light made it difficult. (Not just me then!) (See Robs Birding blog if you want to see more on it.)

For me the highlights that day were the butterflies and dragonflies, including this Small Copper - the first I'd seen...

...and this female Ruddy Darter...

Great names! And thanks to the iSpot experts who helped me with ids.

At Elmley, I spotted a pair of the Ruddy Darters together ...

And again, there were butterflies all around, particularly Gatekeepers...

Swallows were whizzing around the barn at Elmley and were a joy to see.  Also in large numbers were horse flies. There is not much in the natural world that I don't like, but I really really dislike horse flies. And I have the bite marks to justify it. And no, I haven't taken a picture of one.