"If you confuse this dinner dance, with elegance". So go the immortal words of the Prefab Sprout track of the same name and its been a pretty tense 18 hours or so from news of the Elegant Tern at Pags breaking and my connecting with it this morning in the company of Al Redman.
Its been a very busy week with my second BBS visit on the 4th producing an unusual highlight in the shape of a singing male Whinchat holding territory near Horse-eye Green (still present this weekend). One of those moments where you don't recognise a song immediately so have to start scanning! Other goodies on the BBS were Yellow Wagtails and Stonechat. The Hairy Dragonfly (pictured above) was seen on one of my transects as was the Drinker caterpillar (top picture) seen walking across the path at Horse-eye Green.
Midweek moth trapping produced the stunning Eyed Hawk moth pictured overnight on the 5th. Having got my dates skewed in my diary I had to do an early WEBS count on the 10th in the company of Richard and Hazel. This went pretty much as expected as things are quieter from a waterfowl perspective in the summer although the pair of Tufted Duck are still present and the Coots (pictured top) formed a family group of 6.
And so to today and the Elegant Tern which we connected with before it made its first sorty out of the harbour - good to have another real quality rare to get to grips with and to bump into Stuart Reed who I hadn't seen since the Devon Long-billed Murrelet! Also very useful since Stuart pointed us in the right direction for the nationally rare plant Childing Pink Petrorhagia nateulii (pictured below) which is only found at a couple of sites. Other birds at Pags included the Peregrines, Little Terns, and as many Med Gulls as you like, their mewing calls pretty much ever present. Al and I moved on to Ambersham Common where a reptile search was pretty poor only resulting in a single Common Lizard. The Six-spotted Tiger Beetles pictured above were seen on a few occasions and birds included singing Woodlark, Stonechat, Grey Wagtail, Willow Warbler, Tree Pipit, Yellowhammer, and Buzzard.
Our final stop of the day was Frensham Common for the 1st summer male Red-footed Falcon pictured above which gave excellent scope views as it hunted from dead tree branches rounding off an excellent day in good company.
And so to today and the Elegant Tern which we connected with before it made its first sorty out of the harbour - good to have another real quality rare to get to grips with and to bump into Stuart Reed who I hadn't seen since the Devon Long-billed Murrelet! Also very useful since Stuart pointed us in the right direction for the nationally rare plant Childing Pink Petrorhagia nateulii (pictured below) which is only found at a couple of sites. Other birds at Pags included the Peregrines, Little Terns, and as many Med Gulls as you like, their mewing calls pretty much ever present. Al and I moved on to Ambersham Common where a reptile search was pretty poor only resulting in a single Common Lizard. The Six-spotted Tiger Beetles pictured above were seen on a few occasions and birds included singing Woodlark, Stonechat, Grey Wagtail, Willow Warbler, Tree Pipit, Yellowhammer, and Buzzard.
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