Insects Galore

It's been a good week, which started in great form finding my first ever patch Purple Hairstreak!  I noticed there seems to be good numbers of the species about this year, and had my eyes on a few Oak trees on the edge of some woodland in Colyton at the end of Jobble's Lane...

For some reason these caught my eye

And on my first time of checking earlier this week, ten minutes into scanning I picked one up!  I saw it several times over the course of the next five minutes before it flew deeper into the woods - love it when a plan works out!  No pics I'm afraid as no settled views, but such a thrill to see.

I have had three mothing nights this week, starting with a trap at Mum and Dad's on Sunday night.  Early on Monday morning there were 142 macro moths of 42 species for me to look at, with the highlights being...

Scarce Footman - haven't caught many of these at all

Scarce and Common Footman

The Herald - a stunning moth

Black Arches - common but was my first this year so needed a photo!

The next night my moth trap was at Fran's house where 121 macro moths of 32 species were caught, with one clear highlight for me...

Male Drinker - such a beast!

On Tuesday night it was back up to Mum and Dad's again, 104 macro moths of 28 species were waiting for me the following morning and included one of my favourite moths...

Male Four-spotted Footman

And again with a Common Footman

Also among the catch were...

Maybe common but always beautiful - Burnished Brass

Pine Carpet - don't catch loads of these

Small Blood-vein

Phew. And that's the insects done!  No notable birds to mention so will go straight to the lunar activity of the last few days.  The moon has been pretty impressive all week as it is, and here's it rising on Monday night...

Taken during another unsuccessful Quail hunt!

But of course the highlight was the amazing partial lunar eclipse on Tuesday evening...

21:30

22:30. Look at the colour of it!!

Hopefully there will be some more feathered content in my next post...

Back In Business

Finally!

A few rather major events have happened since my laptop died at the end of August. The most recent is the thing I'm writing this blog post on - a brand new laptop!  Thanks to my wife for this.  She wouldn't usually get me a new laptop, but I have just had a 30th birthday so the time was right.  Yes, I am now 30, and I quite simply can't believe it. It doesn't bother me, but I just cannot understand how it has happened, it was only yesterday I was 25... or so it feels anyway...

The other rather notable event since my last blog post was this...

Blood moon

It's not a great photo, but it does show the colour well. It was well worth getting up for early this morning, I always find anything space related extremely fascinating. And I've just heard they've found running water on Mars - mind boggling!

Anyway, back to the moon, and here's a few other pics showing the build up to the eclipse.  It was a cracking full moon to begin with...

 And later on the action began...

I have got so so sooooo much to write about, but instead of crafting one massive blog post I will divide it up into three; Birds, Bird Ringing and Moths. Next will probably be the moths, but in the meantime I've got a months worth of laptop work to be getting on with...

Oh nearly forgot, back to my birthday, if you've never tried hummingbird cake you simply must. Best cake I've ever eaten, and I have eaten a lot of cake...