Black Hole Marsh

Since my last post, Black Hole Marsh continues to produce a nice turn over of wading birds.

The Curlew Sandpipers only stayed the one day, but the next day were replaced by our first juvenile Wood Sandpiper of the year found by Tim C.  By yesterday the Wood Sand count had increased to three, although my short visit there this morning failed to show any.  

Water levels are getting a bit low now so hopefully they'll be topped up shortly by the upcoming bigger tides, but there's so many wading birds still, even if none of them were Wood Sands!

Best of all this morning were two new-in juvenile Little Ringed Plovers, feeding quite close to Island hide...

Enjoying the mud

Do these out-cute juv Med Gulls? I think so!

Looking suitably elongated

Go get that bug!

 

Also present wading bird wise were Lapwing, Greenshank, Dunlin, Common Sandpipers and good numbers of Redshank and Black-tailed Godwits.  

Overhead two Goosander were a surprise, they did a loop over Black Hole Marsh before flying off up the valley.  Just managed to capture one of them on camera...

Very nearly didn't get a shot at all!

 

In the bushes alongside the entrance track a Willow Warbler, which was sporadically singing, was my first of the autumn on patch.  There's still hundreds of Sand Martins feeding low over the site, I guess not a surprise considering 400 pulli have been ringed in the Sand Martin wall this year - which is an incredible number!  Am sure most will soon be off south.

The only other birds sighting I have to mention from the last few days is of three Whimbrel frequenting the lower Estuary (although haven't seen any today).  I have been checking the gulls when I can but still no baby Yellow-legs or many more Meds for me.

Check back soon for more - I have a feeling autumn will be ramping up quite rapidly from here on in...

 

Curlew Sandpipers

Rain overnight coupled with a fairly strong south easterly veering southerly wind, encouraged me to spend a few hours out before work this morning.

Thankfully there were more enthusiastic birders than me about and a quick scroll of my WhatsApp messages before I'd left the house informed me the sea probably wasn't worth my time (thanks James!). So straight to Black Hole Marsh it was...

Here I was really surprised to come across two absolutely stonking Curlew Sandpipers, feeding at times with, but also at times completely separate from the 11 Dunlin also on the marsh.  They remained fairly close to Tower Hide but the light was poor whilst I was there.  Am glad they stayed the day though so many others could enjoy them.

A Blackwit sandwich with Curlew Sand-bread!  Two absolute crackers!

Such a size difference between the two, so presumable female on left and male on right!  

Although we can get spring birds occasionally well into June, these are the earliest autumn birds recorded on the patch that I know of.  Looking through my records the previous earliest autumn Curlew Sand here was on 4th August, back in 2014 on Black Hole Marsh.  So these might well be the first July records? 

Top birds!  And more than enough to get me out of the summer birding doldrums

 

Another autumn first for me this morning - about a month early - was an eclipse drake Wigeon on the Estuary.  It's so early that I actually wonder if it ever left!? A female lingered well into May on Seaton Marshes but don't think I saw a male later than is expected.

Remained distant!

 

Also this morning it was nice to see my first grounded juvenile Med Gull of the autumn.  I saw my first juvenile of the autumn exactly a week ago, but it flew straight down the Estuary and out to sea.  I have not had any big numbers or decent passages of Meds yet, despite over a hundred on the Exe recently.  Hopefully we've not missed them all! 

Hello cutey!

It's been a while since I last posted about birds, but I don't really have much to fill you all in on.  The sea has remained really quiet except small numbers of Manx Shearwater, and in the river valley it's been the same selection of wading birds just in varying numbers.  

There's clearly been some hirundine migration over the last few weeks as I have seen small fast-moving groups of Swallows and Sand Martins sporadically flying over.  Also a few days ago I saw the first noticeable gathering of House Martins feeding overhead under a layer of low cloud, which looked amazing over the house!  Swifts have thinned out as to be expected, I had 50 over the house at the start of the month one morning but have seen no more than 15 on any day in the last week.  

Two Common Sands from BHM last week, included here as shows difference nicely between a young bird (near) and adult bird (far)

Black-tailed Godwits have been showing well lately

Let's hope there is more rain on the way - the two brick red beauties today proving just how quickly the wet stuff can deliver the goods!

Garden Butterfly Surprises

This period of hot and sunny weather is doing wonders for butterfly numbers. I'm seeing excellent numbers and so many different species whenever I've been out and about.  Just brilliant.

My garden continues to attract a nice selection too, including two species I really wasn't expecting... 

The first one was most bizarre, not just because of the species it was, more because I found it fluttering around our bathroom at 10:30pm on Wednesday night!!

Yep - that is a Wood White resting on our toilet roll basket!

 

The bathroom window had been open all day, but for some reason I just didn't notice it until bed time!  I potted it and the next morning let it go in the garden.  It looked alot better floating around our front garden, plus it lingered long enough to allow me to get some more natural photos of it...

A very localised species around here, I have never seen one away from known sites

I got muddy shorts getting this shot!

Today gave the second unexpected record, with a Wall Brown flying around the back garden before resting on one of our walls.  The nearest ones I know of are on Beer Head/Axe Cliff...

Beautiful markings

 

I potted it to get some better shots, but it just wouldn't show its upperwing again!

Long may this sunny weather continue, as hopefully will these surprises!  Take care all, and stay cool...

 

Dolphin, Mandarin and Norfolk Hawker

Didn't have much time out yesterday (Friday), but the time I did spend out and about proved eventful...

First surprise during a speculative flat-sea sea watch from Spot On, was a very playful and inquisitive Bottlenose Dolphin that I could see distantly chasing and playing with the fishing boats coming out of Beer...

It was miles away for me, but the views from Beer would have been brilliant

 

Like a trained animal!

 

The above two stills were taken from this short video, which I took through my telescope...

 

 

I was about to leave, but a final scope sweep across the bay showed a small duck flying in fast from the west.  Took me a while to work out what it was - a fem/juv Mandarin!

...not that you can tell what it is from this photo!

 

It spent about six minutes flying back and forth over the bay, at a variety of distances between virtually over the beach to a distant speck!  Eventually though, the River Axe enticed it in and it disappeared up the valley.  I naturally followed, and there is was on the Estuary where I was able to confirm it as a juvenile...

Probably only come from somewhere else in Devon, but still exciting to see a Mandarin vis migging!

That was from an hour out in the morning, but then mid-afternoon I had half an hour out at Lower Bruckland Ponds looking at dragonflies.

It was nice to see all the usual species out in fairly good numbers. The highlight though was stumbling upon a Norfolk Hawker, the third year this species has been recorded here...

Like the first one it didn't land for a photo, however unlike the first one that basically zoomed past me and disappeared, this one remained on view for the whole time I was watching it, partrolling a small terriorty.  Surprisingly I did manage this photo when it came to blows with a neighbouring Emperor...

This is the third year with a record of a single male here - surely that means they must actually be breeding!?

 

I put the moth trap out again last night but will leave that for another post.  Check back soon for more!

 

Wood Sands and Crossbills

Am pleased to say I have some more bird news!  July hasn't half come around fast, but am glad it's here because it's always the month that you really feel autumn-migration gains some serious momentum.

Black Hole Marsh, now that we have some muddy edges, is proving a real magnet for the first returning wading birds. I just spent half an hour down there with Jess, this showed 40+ Black-tailed Godwits, 20 Redshank (including my first juvenile of the year), five Common Sandpiper, three Lapwing, three Dunlin, two Greenshank and two lovely Wood Sandpipers.

The Wood Sandpipers were quite close, but in appalling light so my photos aren't anything special...

The two adult Wood Sands with singles of Lapwing, Common Sand and Dunlin

   

Again both Wood Sands, although the darker of the two is fast asleep!

Fifty shades of Blackwits!  Some real stunners in full breeding plumage still

 

It's not just waders here, there's lots of Black-headed Gulls about including at least five juveniles, and Shelducks have clearly had a fairly reasonable breeding season with lots of grown up babies about.  

Earlier this week I was pleased to get my first vismig Crossbills of the season.  And even better, they were from my garden whilst I was emptying the moth trap.   Two flew south west over the garden, and although I didn't capture them on this video, if you turn the sound up you can hear them chupping away...

 

 

There's been a lot of gulls feeding out in the bay in recent days, so am hoping to take a closer look at them in the morning. Hopefully they lure something better into the bay.

Birds and Butterflies

When the clouds cleared this morning and sun emerged, an almost constant trickle of white butterflies (seemed to be a mixture of Small and Large Whites from what I saw) began arriving from the east along the beach and over the sea.  Nothing like the scenes from Norfolk last week (see HERE) but it's always exciting to see insect migration however heavy or light.

Because of this I took a walk down the harbour at lunch time, where a Painted Lady showed well, only my fifth of the year and another sign of butterfly migration...

Yes their upperwing has most the colour, but their underwings are spectacular!

 

Although most the whites I saw were the ones mentioned in the first paragraph, flying straight through, just for a change one of the local Wood Whites (saw five in all during this visit) actually decided to land for me...

The wonderfully-shaped Wood White

 

An even better view!  Rarely are they this approachable

Head-on Wood White

I saw my first Ringlets of 2025 during this wander too, along with plenty of Meadow Browns.  The Everlasting Pea is in flower at the moment at the harbour, be nice if the Long-tailed Blues returned!

I have some birds news too, thanks to a message on the local WhatsApp group. Shortly after midday today I had a five minute view of an Osprey fishing, or attempting to fish, on the upper Axe Estuary.  Another consecutive year with a mid-summer Osprey record, presumably something to do with the expanding English breeding population?  

We are now up to over twenty Black-tailed Godwits on Black Hole Marsh, but I missed the first returning Green Sandpiper of the 'autumn' which Ian M reported on 25th.  

On 28th I gave the sea an hour as the wind was blowing from the right direction.  Four adult Med Gulls west were my first for a while, also had 17 Common Scoter, 15 Manx Shearwaters and 10 Shelduck all west.  But am still waiting for my first skua of 2025.  On the Estuary afterwards I saw my first juvenile Black-headed Gull of the year.

With all this insect migration today, of course the moth trap is out again tonight...

 

Even More Moths

The exciting mothing spell continues - hence another post so soon after my previous one!

I have trapped both nights since my last post, catching 225 macro moths of 54 species on Friday/Saturday night, and 194 macro moths of 45 species on Saturday/Sunday night.  It's out again tonight too!

Elephant Hawkmoths have appeared in excellent numbers, they were the second most numerous species in the trap (behind Riband Wave) on Friday night when I caught 30 of them! 

 

The migration continues, with Bordered Straw on both nights and a single Pearly Underwing on Friday night.  Am still waiting for a my first migrant Hawkmoth for the garden though, which hopefully isn't far away!  

My most surprising catch was a species new to me, so I honestly had no idea what it was when I first saw it in the egg boxes, I just knew it was a type of Wainscot that I had never seen before...

An obvious warmish reddish tinge to it and that striking split black stripe down the wing.  Also note those two rows of black dots on the upperwing which are key to its identification.

 

A Webb's Wainscot it was.  A species that has records from the heart of Axe valley, being a reedy specialist like many of the wainscots.  Most likely this one has just wandered from there, however the fact it seems to be over a month early (shouldn't really be on the wing until August-September) does make me wonder whether it may have originated from a continental population?  

As Wainscots go it's got a lot going for it!

 

Another nice highlight was a species I only caught twice in over ten years of trapping at Mum and Dad's, a Royal Mantle...

I was a little confused by this one mind as the reddy areas seemed to be completely lacking!  Almost looked like a black and white version, it should look like THIS

 

My other highlights, and all firsts for the garden, were more usual species but ones that I always take great delight in seeing...

A not all that ruddy Ruddy Carpet

 

My second Tiger sp for the garden, a lovely Scarlet Tiger

Bum in air which is typical for this species - Phoenix

Marbled Green with friends (Buff-tip and Privet Hawmoth)

Blue-bordered Carpet

Blood-vein. Have already caught a couple of their smaller cousins.

Maybe fairly common, but always stunning.  Rosy Footman.

Not sure numbers will be as impressive tonight.  It is still, but it's also clear so I suspect the temperatures will drop a bit lower than they have in previous nights.  But as we all know it only takes one...

Garden Wildlife

We seem to be in the middle of a really good spell of moth-action.  The mild nights are great for moths in general, but there's also plenty of insect migration going on at the moment so there's been a good and steady arrival of migrant moth species too - making it forever tempting to stick the moth trap out when the conditions are half decent.

This post won't just be about moths though, I thought I would update on how the garden wildlife is getting on in general - although I can't top the Nighjar when it comes to the birds! 

Our back garden.  The lawn looks a bit dry in this pic, but I am thrilled with the diversity within it as it's full of mosses and wild flowers. The large hedges that enclose our garden are mix of several species as well.

I'll kick off not with moths, but with a surprise I got whilst mothing the other night.  I could hear it rustling for about ten minutes before it appeared, but when I did, I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to see a Hedgehog in our garden! 

Not seen a live one in Seaton for at least five years, and that one was my first for several years

 

Another creature I was really happy to see in the garden a couple of weeks ago was a Slow worm, actively feeding in an area of bare earth.  Any time we turn the earth over I am always delighted with how many worms and other creepy crawlies it reveals.  We really do seem to have a wildlife-rich garden, and we haven't really done all that much yet we've only been in the house for seven months!

Of course with so many mini-beasts, there are plenty of birds to eat them.  It seems like Starling and House Sparrows have had a good breeding season in the local area, especially the latter as at any one time there can be up to  25-30 in the back garden.   All the usual garden species have got young at the moment, especially Blackbirds and Robins who have both fledged their second broods now.  Such a thrill to see so much bird life!  

On the butterfly front, really happy to see a Marbled White in the garden today. Otherwise just the usual expected species like Meadow Brown, Large White, Small White, etc.  The only Odonata species I have seen here so far is a single male Large Red Damselfly.  Mind you I wasn't even expecting that as we don't have a pond (yet!). 

And now to the moths. Wow.  Last night needs a special mention, with an impressive 237 macro moths of 54 species in the trap.  Otherwise over the last few weeks whenever I have had the trap out I've been catching around 150 macros moths of 30-40 species each time.   The highlights...

A new moth for me, and there were two of them last night.  Small Marbled, a usually fairly scarce migrant species but there's a real influx of these underway at the moment.

 

A silky smooth White Satin, another migrant species that I caught on 21st. Love those zebra-striped legs!

The first Bordered Straw that I caught 20th, but I have had six more since!  A migrant.

One of two Small Mottled Willows from 21st - another migrant

 

Not a migrant species but a beautiful one - Beautiful Golden Y.

Was pleased to catch this Crescent Dart on 25th, a species I did well for at Mum and Dad's.

Another nationally uncommon moth that I got used to catching at Mum and Dad's, so pleased to have caught three of these Four-spotted Footman in my garden so far.

 

Another nationally uncommon moth that I used to do well for at Mum and Dad's suggesting they breed locally - a Portland Ribbon Wave

 

True Lover's Knot - a resident but never seem to be numerous.  I have caught two so far here.

 

A striking one from this morning - Cloaked Carpet

Honestly, I could keep going with the photos, the quantity and variety of moths has really blown me away.  I wasn't expecting results anything like this.  

I am one happy man.