August 26th

With heavy overnight rain, I wasn't expecting lots of moths and we only ran one trap instead of the normal two, an hour and half later and 274 moths later we had logged everything and let everything go. The highlight was a Convolvulus Hawkmoth only the second site record, another large addition to the year list was a nice Red Underwing, on a slightly smaller scale Treble Bar was new for the year as well. Birch Mocha was the the first I had seen this year and an interesting shaped tortrix is still to be ID'd. There were 43 species in all this morning. Here are a few of todays moths.

Birch Mocha

Acleris Emargana, I think.

Pyrausta despicata

 On the bird front, I was expecting a few migrants this morning but by the time I had finished with the moths it was all a bit of a rush again. A WILLOW WARBLER was in the car park with the usual SPOTTED FLYCATCHERS at the moment there were 4 this morning, there was no sign of the 'chats' out in the fields unfortunately, especially as a friend of mine, Pete, had come to have a quick look for them for a second time when they decided not be around. We did hear a YELLOW WAGTAIL go over, no doubt an escapee from the Pittswood area :-). The short bit of hedge I did manage to get a look at held 2 SEDGE WARBLERS, 4 WHITETHROATS, YELLOWHAMMER and a WREN, so there certainly were a few bits around, I just didn't have long enough to find them all! Also this morning there were at least 60 SWALLOWS hanging around over the veg garden, a sign of things to come, they were later joined by a good number of HOUSE MARTINS making the total around of around 100 birds in all.