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Niko Tinbergen hit the mark when he referred to naturalists as curious. In my scavenging for flora and fauna hitherto unrecorded in this embarrassingly poorly recorded corner of the principality I found this bottle partly exposed from the sphagnum margins of Coity Pond. Although well weathered the bottle was complete with a tightly fitting cap emblazoned with some long lost words. In Time Team fashion I carefully exposed the bottle from the mud and moss like a true archaeologist, carrying it to the bankside as if bearing a gift.  Whilst examining the bottle a wave of nostalgia washed over me. I remembered with affection  the summer's of my youth when healthy young lads played cricket or rolled their sleeves up before climbing trees, only to quench their thirst with a bottle of deposit paid Corona lemonade afterwards.

You will have probably realised by now that all this talk about deposit paid soft drinks bottles masks a rather lightweight session of wildlife spotting around the pond. For a water body of this size and in early August it is reasonable to expect a good population of damselflies. On the contrary the two common blue damselfly that showed were trumped only by a couple of black darter. Bird wise a reed bunting called and linnet flew overhead.