A late start yesterday meant just a half hour visit, mainly in rainy conditions, the highlight was just 5 SPOTTED FLYCATCHERS a quick scan of the fields didn't find the 3 Chats that have been around recently.
This morning I recorded the moths and it took getting on for 2 hours! 431 moths (macros only) of 54 species, was a marked increase on recent days. There were a few year ticks, Feathered Gothics emerged for the first time this year with 9 being recorded. A Bulrush Wainscot was a good record here, although can be common elsewhere. The highlight was our second site record of Clay Triple-Lines (as long as I have got the ID right!!). The most numerous moth was Large Yellow Underwing with 60 individuals. Some colour was added to the mornings recording with 8 Light Emerald, 3 Canary Shouldered Thorns and 5 Rosy Footman. Migrant moths were represented by 2 Silver Y's and maybe the White Point. A Peacock was only the second one I had seen this year. I didn't have time to look through the micros but did note 1 Apotomis Betuletana of which there is picture, if anyone could confirm if I've got the ID right, that would be great.
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| Clay Triple-Lines |
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| Bulrush Wainscot |
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| Orange Swift |
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| Apotomis Betuletana? |
Taking so long with the moths, meant I had just 50 minutes birding. A TAWNY OWL called before I started the moths at around 5.30am. Once out walking numbers of birds were low, I only noted 1 YELLOWHAMMER, 1 SKYLARK, 3 SPOTTED FLYCATCHERS, there were several WHITETHROATS flying out of the clover into the hedge as I made my way round and 6 REED BUNTINGS were seen. A single LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL flew south west but other than that the skies held 14 SWALLOWS and some distant calling HOUSE MARTINS. My Dad had the best bird of the last couple of days when he found another SEDGE WARBLER. It was poor for photography this morning, so I dropped in again after work to see if I could get a few shots.
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| A popular pothole! |
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| These pictures tell their own story! |
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| I tried hard to get one side on or at least coming towards me! |
2 comments:
Alan ,
No wonder it took so long with that number of moths to deal with . I would love to confirm your ID , but !
The second half of the post should have carried a PG classification . Great shots though .
Hi Greenie, It was a long haul but always a test when Steve's not around.
Thanks, I think you may be right with the certificate rating, I should have thought of that :-)
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