General (county) news - 23rd May 2010

• Anna and I spent the day in Surrey yesterday, watching the golf at Wentworth, and I'm pretty sure there's been no clouds at all over this part of the world for 3 days now...
• The big "hatch" of damselflies has occurred at last - on the dawn walk this morning at a local nature reserve, it was difficult to walk through the clouds of odonates without feeling you were stamping on them! Mainly common blue damselflies they were.
  
  
  
• Small copper butterflies out also - summer really hit this weekend, with temperatures up to 28c.
• Still no great numbers of dragonflies as far as I can tell yet.
• Pine trees shedding their pollen in great big yellow clouds.
• As for the weather, it will be cooler from tuesday and MUCH colder (maybe up to 18c colder) the week following the bank holiday (a switch in wind direction to a northerly will do that for us).
• First cuckoo heard today!
• I think I've located a kingfisher nest site (in a drainage ditch in a very urban part of the Thames) but I've not investigated further or filmed it, as I've not got a shedule 1 licence and am more than a little concerned about the rise and rise of "enthusiasts" who are not licenced by natural england, filming and disturbing these birds...
• Because the temperature has been so hot recently, all the local carp decided to spawn today...