Backdated post. A walk on the beach turned into a guided tour of Slack 47 when I bumped into Phil Smith and Pat Lockwood whilst admiring a roost of terns on the beach.

Dragon flies slack 47
Emperor
Ruddy sarter
Big blue abdomen green thorax
Damsels: red, blue, banded, blue and beige couples
A couple of newt likes.
Boatmen
Swallows
Warblers
Sandwich tern inc juv Gbh Bhga Common tern? Cormorants
Dunlin
Ringed plover

I’d already walked through the dunes and admired some dragonflies at what I later learned was Slack 47, in particular noting some that were “Big blue abdomen green thorax” and wondering what sort of newts I could see. I passed on to the beach where I was looking at the waders and a big roost of terns and gulls, including a number of juvenile Sandwich Terns. Legendary local naturalist Phil Smith came up to join me - he thought from a distance he’d seen a rarer bird - and we got to talking and I tagged along as he and botanist Pat visited Slack 47.

Phil told me a lot about the dragonflies here; I learned that the big guys I’d noted were Emperors. Phil showed me a Ruddy Darter perched on a post, and there were other species around that I didn’t write down. Common Darter and a few of the commoner Damselflies, no doubt. I’ll leave all those for future entries.