Wednesday 5 September 2012

Recent sightings..

Visits have been sporadic lately and I can't see much of a change in the near future but there are still a few bits to report. After a short break in Florence my first short walk on the 1st September produced the first WHINCHAT (95) of the year and the first YELLOW WAGTAIL (96), other highlights were sparse but a KINGFISHER called several times as it whizzed downstream. There were a few Dragonflies around but not the hoped for Emerald Damselfly that the warden had reported, I enjoyed checking the Darters out and managed a couple of shots.
Common Darter

Ruddy Darter (note the narrow 'waist')

The morning of the 4th September was bright, a few SWALLOWS, maybe 15 were high over the car park, in the trees and bushes here were LESSER WHITETHROAT, BLACKCAP, WILLOW WARBLER, CHIFFCHAFF and a couple of SPOTTED FLYCATCHERS. The walk continued to turn up warblers and GARDEN WARBLER was next followed by a COMMON WHITETHROAT, then the long awaited SEDGE WARBLER (97), which posed in the early morning light. YELLOWHAMMERS are still around in good numbers maybe 10-15 is a conservative estimate, REED BUNTINGS were less well represented with around 5 birds. The KINGFISHER was again heard and 20 HOUSE MARTINS flew south.
Young Spotted Flycatcher

Sedge Warbler

 At home later a period of about 5 minutes around 1.30pm produced 3 HOBBIES, 1 SPARROWHAWK a HONEY BUZZARD and a COMMON BUZZARD!! While during the afternoon 8 species of butterfly visited the garden, probably the highlight being a single BRIMSTONE, the first of a second brood.
Out again this morning, which was a nice bonus and another addition to the year was a single SAND MARTIN (98) that flew over high with a couple of SWALLOWS, overall the last couple of days have been quite productive! Steve is still recording the moths I joined him this morning where the highlights were a FROSTED ORANGE, new for the year and a nice BORDERED BEAUTY, there were also at least 79 SETACEOUS HEBREW CHARACTERS today.
Speckled Wood

Weird effect of a Rainbow, never noticed this sort of thing before?

13 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Cracking shots Alan, love the Spot Fly image.

Mike Attwood said...

Ditto.

Mike H said...

Great to hear from you again Alan, like the others good to see the young SF, great shots too.

Tammy said...

Hi Alan, great photos, especially those dragonflies! They are beautiful! I see "double rainbows' here pretty frequently, they are really cool to see!

Marianne said...

Lovely photos, esp. the young Spotfly, gorgeous. My local patch visits have been on the sporadic side lately too, can be hard work this time of year!

Helma said...

Beautifully these photos of the dragonfly and the birds. Beautiful color and sharpness. A pleasure to see.

Kind regards, Helma

Warren Baker said...

Hi Alan,
Notching up a few year ticks this month :-) Soon be reaching that ton!

Lovely photo's BTW.

Phil said...

Good to see a post from you Alan. Great shots as always.

Greenie said...

Alan ,
Tantalisingly close to the 'ton' again .
Some very nice species in the high nineties too .

ShySongbird said...

Lovely photos again Alan, I particularly like the ones of the darters, that was a great tip for distinguishing between the two. Love the juvenile SF.

I have seen double rainbows but not recently.

Lasse said...

Lovely shots !!

Ana Mínguez Corella said...

Hi!!!.. Beautiful pictures.. Greetings

Ingemar Pettersson said...

Hi Alan!
Lovely serie my favorit photo are of course the stunning rainbow.
Have a nice day!
/Ingemar