August bank holidays' and the Queen of Spain

Just for a change the past week has seen warm weather and a bit of activity on the bird and insect front. A walk across White Dyke with Rich on the 27th produced the sub adult male Marsh Harrier, several Hobby hawking low level dragons in the cooler morning air, and a Green Sandpiper along Swan Lane. Earlier in the week I managed to catch up with the Beachy melody on the evening of the 24th and the Cuckmere Hoopoe found by Matt on the afternoon of the 25th, both sites also held numbers of commoner migrants including Whinchats, Spot Flys', and Wheatears.

With the warmer weather there has also been a pick up in the moth trap numbers. One or two White-points have been caught on the nights of 21st, 23rd, 25th, and 26th. A Hoary Footman was a welcome find on the night of the 21st, Sharp-angled Peacock on the 23rd, and a Toadflax Brocade on the 25th. From the micro corner there were Palpita vitrealis on the nights of the 16th and 26th, as well as 2 new micros' for the garden in the shape of Clavigesta purdey (Pine leaf-mining moth) on the night of 25th and Nephopterix angustella on the night of the 26th, all micros' are pictured below.

Away from birds and moths I managed a new insect for the garden in the form of a Figwort Sawfly (pictured below) on the Brambles on the 22nd.

And so to today, the 28th, Bank holiday Monday when I would usually stay put and not venture out! However with news breaking of several Queen of Spain Fritillary at Piddinghoe I decided to brave the roads and spend a short time on a butterfly twitch. I managed to see 2 males during the short time I was on site, and thanks to Ian Barnard who looked after Hazel, I managed to get the pictures at the top and bottom of this piece. Take care and watch out for unusual haze....

#AmazonReef

For those that are not aware BP are planning to drill near the Amazon Reef - For more details look here:

https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/s/defend-the-amazon-reef

Please do all you can to lobby against this potential endangerment of this unique environment.

Dog Days

The lack of sultry weather seems to be pushing moth numbers down with the trap generally being pretty quiet. The only new moth recently has been the Saltern Ear pictured above trapped on the night of the of the 27th July.

Similarly birding has been quiet with the WEBS count on the 13th being particularly so. Normans Bay has been a little busier with regular parties of up to 40 Sandwich Terns including the group above on the 12th August.

The Grey Seal pictured above has been seen regularly fishing in Normans Bay and a single Brown Hare was on Down Level on the 13th.

Finally the impressive Hornet hoverfly pictured above was in the garden on the 30th July.

Northumberland

Family holidays are always a compromise and generally everyone gets a little time to themselves as well as having some joint activities and ours was no different. We took a holiday let of a converted barn a couple of miles outside Rothbury in the Northumberland National Park for a week which, whilst not long enough for me, provided plenty of good birds and a ready made excuse to return as I was unable to get across to the Farnes!

Birding was limited to an hour or two on most days so the nearest I got to any islands was this view of Coquet Island on the 19th just outside Amble. Whilst most were distant I did manage many Puffin both on the island and fishing in the channel between the mainland as well as Common, Sandwich, Arctic, and Roseate terns, Gannet, Razorbill, and Guillemot.

Our let held fishing rights for a mile on the river Coquet however it was near the town centre on the
18th that I saw the Dipper pictured above and right as well as the Grey Wagtail below. Dipper has to be one of my favourite birds with their ceaseless search for water invertebrates in fast flowing water.

A family wander around the coastline on the 20th included a brief stop at Seahouses. This enabled me to wander down to the harbour where the inevitable Eider creche clocked me before I had even wandered down the slipway. These sea duck really are quite enchanting and incredibly confiding!

The same evening I took a wander up to the top of the beacon above Simonside with Hazel and along with an unexpected Cuckoo managed to see a couple of coveys of Red Grouse, a 3 and a 7, including the bird pictured below.

Other sightings around Simonside over the week included Tawny Owl, Spotted Flycatcher, Crossbill, numerous Siskin and Redpoll, Bullfinches, Treecreeper, Coal Tit, Goldcrest, and Raven. More worryingly given the recent highly publicised failures of the Crown Prosecution Service to do their civic duty in bringing cases to court, was the almost complete absence of raptors. My only sighting of a bird of prey across the entire week was of a single Buzzard on the evening of the 18th near Simonside. In case anyone is unaware the address below will demonstrate the exact level of corruption / incompetence / disinterest that the CPS clearly places on raptor persecution.

https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2017/05/05/hen-harrier-shooting-on-cabrach-estate-rspb-releases-video-footage/

As I mentioned earlier family holidays are a compromise so I compromised on the amount of clothes I took to enable me to fit a portable Heath trap (supplied by ALS) in my rucksack! I managed to run the trap for 3 nights and as a result picked up 4 macro ticks and 3 micro ticks. Nothing startling with probably the most desired of the macros' being the Antler moth pictured above although the Plain (?) Golden Y below was also very attractive.

In all my trapping sessions produced a total of 125 macros of 23 species and 12 micros of 12 of 12 species, the most attractive of the new micros for me being Ypsophola dentella.

A variety of other insects seen included the hoverfly Volucella pelluscens (Great Pied Hoverfly) pictured above. Mammals were limited to Brown Hare, Roe Deer, and Stoat. Take care.

Eats Bees and Breeds

It would have been rude not to take in the Bee-eaters at East Leake in Nottinghamshire on the 14th since I had tickets for the first two days of the Trent Bridge test match. As a result Amber had to endure a slightly earlier than scheduled start in order to humour me by paying a visit to the site, about twenty minutes from the ground, before play. The birds put on an exemplary display feeding on bees and other insects from their favoured perches around the quarry, often calling as they flew short sorties for prey items.

News has subsequently been released that the birds have nested and that at least 2 young are being reared, not totally surprising given that we witnessed courtship / pair bonding behaviour (pictured above) where one of the birds is offering a bumble bee to another, and the location and the length of time the birds have been present.
The cricket was very enjoyable albeit that England were hammered by a strongly motivated Proteas' side. Joe Root pictured below on the way to a cameo fifty.

M is for Meds' and Macros'

The early part of July has continued with warm sunny weather which has, in turn, resulted in plenty of moths. Birds on the other hand remain quiet with the highlights being 5 ad Med Gulls in Normans' bay on the 9th and an Osprey over Hankham level today (11th).

So too the moths. I have been trapping regularly in the garden since 2005 and, whilst I have a period from 2007 to 2009 where I have lost the records, I cannot remember a week with 5 new macros' for the garden since those very early days. Pride of place has to go to the two Nb species, the male Festoon trapped overnight on the 6th pictured above, and the Kent Black Arches trapped overnight on the 8th pictured below.

The macro list for the UK, while larger, bears some comparison to the bird list in terms of overall numbers so to get 5 ticks in my garden in a week really is surprising! What is even more surprising is that 3 were on the night of the 8th, Large Emerald and Shaded Broad-bar the extra 2, and the other was also on the night of the 10th in the shape of a long wanted species, Blackneck.

In addition the night of the 9th July supplied a new micro, Phycitodes binaevella, pictured above. Keep it real!

Grapholita lobarzewskii

This moderately attractive micro was trapped overnight on the 18th June. It is very rare that I am entirely comfortable with micro ids', especially when the status says anything other than common, so it was kind of Colin Pratt to confirm my suspicions.
The same night produced another 2 new micros' for the garden, Gypsonoma dealbana and Agapeta hamana, along with a new macro in the shape of the female Ghost moth pictured below. A real red letter night!

Birding has, as is typical at this time of year, dropped off a bit. The best of a motley assortment being an adult Med gull in Normans bay on the evening of the 18th and a Red Kite drifting over the garden on the afternoon of the 22nd.