Hmmmmmmmmm....

Guess what I saw in the garden yesterday?.....

Only the second one I've seen here since we moved in 18 years ago.... was it a bird?... was it a bug?...

NOPE - it was this....

Soooooo cute!

As you may have guessed from the cable in the back ground of the above photo - and the fact that I was in the garden at night - I had the moth traps out last night. I didn't have much to show for it though, just 46 moths of 15 species. This did include two new for the gardens though, one was this migrant that I've been waiting for...

Pearly Underwing; it really does have a pearly underwing too!

The other first for the garden was this...

A lovely moth - a Large Ranunculus

I had another of these, but as you can see from the following photo it was quite different, being smaller with a nice (albeit jagged) black cross-line. I was hoping it was going to turn out to be a Black-banded...

....no such luck though... Large Ranunculus number two!

The rest of the catch was made up of: 14 Setaceous Hebrew Character, 6 Lesser Yellow Underwing, 5 Snout, 4 Square-spot Rustic, 3 Large Yellow Underwing, 3 Light Emerald, 2 Vine's Rustic, 2 Silver Y, and singles of: Angle Shades, Dusky Thorn, Common Marbled Carpet, Shuttle-shaped Dart and Common Wainscot.

I spent lots of time out in the field today, I FINALLY have had a day-off!!! : ) To sum it all up though... I saw BUGGER ALL!

Axe Cliff was quite exciting this morning, well, it was if you like Meadow Pipits! Fortunately I LOVE Meadow Pipits, so it was great! There were large flocks moving west; some going straight over, others gradually hopping from field to field. COOL! There were a few alba Wags and single Grey and Yellow Wags in with them. Also a few Skylarks and Linnets hanging about in the fields, which is promising! In the bushes - migrants wise - there were plenty of Chiffs, one Willow Warbler, a few Blackcaps, and nowt else...

Not much new on the river, well nothing new in fact! Two Bar and six Black-tailed Godwits, five Ringed Plovers and three Dunlin.

That's it really! I'm off to bed now, good night all...