Venus Pool, Shropshire 14 May

A family weekend in Shropshire gave me the opportunity to visit a new site for me - Venus Pool near Shrewsbury. This turned out to be better than expected. Shortly after arrival, a helpful local showed me a sunning Grass Snake just outside the main hide.

Birdwise, although various scarcities from earlier in the week had moved on (Gargeney and Little Tern), I was still able to have some memorable moments with a pair of Little Ringed Plovers that displayed briefly very close to one of the hides.

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Displaying Little Ringed Plover

After this "show", there was a rather more distant strange encounter between a super aggressive Moorhen that took on at least one Carrion Crow! It even seemed to have the upper hand at times, as shown below.

Moorhen attacking a Carrion Crow! 

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