A Good Moth Night

On Friday evening it was great to have a moth trap out at Mum and Dad's. I haven't trapped here for a few years now, after a couple of years of fairly intense trapping - so I do feel like I know the site quite well. 

The weather was perfect, and although there was no evidence of any long-distant migration it was a super catch with 427 macro moths of 44 species.  Absolutely no surprise that the most numerous three species were Heart and Dart (129), Dark Arches (102) and Large Yellow Underwing (42).  Pleasingly Hawkmoths were well represented with 18 of four species...

L to R; Poplar Hawk, Elephant Hawk, Small Elephant Hawk and Privet Hawk.

Two Privet Hawks were a bit of a surprise because I've only ever caught five here before!

Privet Hawks are so HUGE!

Poplar Hawks have the fluffiest of heads!

Elephant and Small Elephant Hawks

Same as above but a different view

Out of the rest of the catch a White Satin was the pick of the bunch. On the first night I ever moth trapped in the garden (29th June 2009) I caught five of these, so at the time thought I may have stumbled upon a local population - but no - not a sniff of another until this one on Friday night...

Silky white wings and those zebra striped legs make this moth a bit of a cracker in my books!

Hoping to get my Robinson trap repaired soon, so you have been warned - moth content is set to rise on the blog if that does happen...

A Summary Of The Last Week

Well I think we can safely say there's been a shift in the weather. We've had some pretty intense thunder storms and showers during the nights this week, and along with the full moon I thought this would have made for some good wader passage. It certainly started well on Sunday, but has flat-lined since and there's not been anything obviously new in.  All the birding time I've had in the past week I've spent it at either at Black Hole Marsh or on Seaton Beach. I'll start with what the beach has given me, and I'll start with this morning...

For the first time for weeks and weeks, the sea wasn't flat calm. This was thanks to a southerly wind which felt really good, and I was hoping it would do something. It didn't. In half an hour I had (all west): 28 Common Scoter, three Sandwich Tern (incl. my first juv) and two Med Gulls (ad and juv).

Yesterday morning amongst the gulls on the beach (and there have been loads) were singles of juvenile Med and Lesser Black-backed Gulls (both my first of this age for the year). Offshore very little was moving, although a flock of nine Manxies came from nowhere and flew into the bay, before heading off east.

The previous morning (Monday) two adult Med Gulls were offshore, with two Little Egrets in off, 16 Common Scoter east and a few Gannets west.   

Black Hole Marsh has been graced by a stunning male Ruff since Sunday afternoon, no photos of it here but there's plenty around on the usual local photography blogs. There's also been four Little Ringed Plovers (two ads, two juvs - also present since Sunday), up to 13 Dunlin, three Greenshank, two Green Sandpipers and the usual Lapwing, Black-tailed Godwits and Common Sands.  Lots of Black-headed Gulls are still using Black Hole as a high tide roost site, regularly bringing in Med Gulls, of which I had four of (three second summers and an adult) on Monday.  In the past week allowing for duplication I can safely say I've seen at least 18 Med Gulls on patch, hopefully a sign of things to come for us.

I wrote the above paragraph yesterday, and this morning Black Hole Marsh was empty! No Dunlin, Ruff of Little Ringed Plovers.  I can only assume a bird of prey (or something else?) flushed everything just before my arrival.

I've got some house/garden birding news too.  Since my last post I've added two species to the house list, both heard only though.  On 17th (last Wednesday) just after 22:00 I heard a/the Little Ringed Plover call twice on Black Hole Marsh, and on 20th 2+ Crossbill flew over (east I think)!  On Monday evening from the bedroom I thought I'd check and count the Little Egret roost. By 21:20 I'd notched up 57 Little Egrets, but sadly no other species.  Worthwhile though as that's a decent count for us.

Lastly, well for the birdie bit of this blog post, obviously the ultimate juv Yellow-legged Gull ID guide is on Not Quite Scilly, but have a look at the following link. In particular the lower photo showing the open wing of a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull (the bird in flight), and I suspect by total fluke, a juvenile Herring Gull too (the bird on the water). Subtle but conclusive...

http://www.devonbirds.org/news/bird_news/devon_bird_news?blogEntry=3164

Right, time for some moth pics and updates now! There's four traps full of moths to talk about, so I'll try and condense it and make it as pretty as possible.

First of all I'll talk about my night of mothing at a new site near Colyford on the night of 13th/14th. It's basically a large garden, high up, on the edge of mixed farm land and not far at all from woodland.  The weather was perfect for mothing and in the morning I had 287 moths of 58 species.  This included a new species for me...

Cloaked Carpet

And there were plenty of other highlights...

Scallop Shell

Scarce Silver-lines

Drinker moth

Peach Blossom - not rare but always great to see

Just for interest, a White Ermine in front of a Buff Ermine

The other three nights of moth trapping have been at my usual site, Mum and Dad's garden.  The most recent attempt, last Sunday night, was cut short. Shortly after darkness fell we had the most horrendous rain storm, so the trap had to be turned off. At 2am though the rain had passed so the trap was turned back on. 

As it wasn't a full night I didn't count everything as I usually do, but I was surprised how much was in there. The highlight being a first for the garden!  This is exciting as I don't get many any more, and it was quite a nice one too...

Blue-bordered Carpet

It was also good to see some new species for the year, with at least six of these...

Rosy Footman

And one of these...

Ruby Tiger

The other nights I trapped were the 14th when I caught 176 moths of 41 species and the 16th when I caught 184 moths of 48 species.

Thie highlights were...

Scorched Carpet - I don't catch many of these

Female Ghost Moth, again I catch very few of these

My second Small Elephant Hawkmoth of the year

Beautiful Hook-tip - common but my first of the year

Scalloped Oak - again common but my first of the year

 Hopefully I'll have some notable birds to blog about in the near future, even a Wood Sandpiper would do!

An Exciting Morning

Had a really enjoyable morning, thanks to my varied interests in the natural world. I do like July, always have, autumn migration begins in the bird world, there's young birds all over the place (or should be - there wasn't last year!), and insects are out in force.

As this is a 'birding blog', I'll start with birds, and my second patch year tick of the month. Species number 178 to be precise - just 22 to go!

Whilst checking the contents of my moth trap this morning at Mum and Dad's (more on that later), a Crossbill flew west over chipping away. Last winter there were simply no Crossbills anywhere - so I was worried about getting this species on to my patch year list, thankfully though something of a mini-influx has taken place in the UK within the past few weeks. Interestingly, roughly half of my non-Morganhayes Woods patch Crossbills (i.e. vis mig birds) have been from Mum and Dad's. Couchill Woods is just over the hill, and the height makes it a good spot for vis mig in general. Most of them have been July/August too.   

I went down to Black Hole Marsh afterwards - to coincide with the high tide. Lots of Black-headed Gulls roosting, 380 to be precise(ish!). This included 18 juvs, along with one Med Gull. Sadly no Little or Bonaparte's yet, but I can feel it coming I really can.  Just for Laurie (and anyone else who wants to play) let's have a game of Spot the Med Gull...

There's three juv Black-heads in the photo too

Plenty of other juvenile birds about too, some locally born and others not so. Some of the locally hatched juvs included lots of Shelduck families, with most the ducklings looking like this...

But also a couple of new younger families like this...

The Oystercatcher chicks are no longer chicks. What a success story this is, one young raised in 2011, none in 2012 and THREE this year.  Here's one of the adults watching out so the rest of the family can rest...

Two juvenile Redshank (with ten adults) may have been locally grown, but the juv Little Ringed Plover certainly wasn't - my first of the autumn. Other waders here included three Dunlin (also my first of the autumn, all in smart summer plumage), three Lapwing, two Blackwits and at least six Common Sands.

Random I know, but here's a Goldfinch photo. I don't usually post photos of common birds, simly because I never take good pictures of them. With the exception of the grass head in front of its tail, I'm quite happy with this one...

They've got to be one of the flashiest of the resident common birds in the UK

Right, it's moth time now.

It was much cooler last night, with a bit of breeze at times too, so I wasn't surprised to have just 96 moths of 24 species in the trap. There were some excellent species amongst them though - some really nice variety.

Best of all was the garden's fifth Hawkmoth of the year, and only my second ever Small Elephant Hawkmoth...

I don't need to tell you which one it is. Clue is in the name :-)

A Dog's Tooth was a bit of a rarity for me to. They are a marshland/estuarine species really, and this is only the third one I've trapped in the garden...

Look at those sharp pointed 'teeth' at the end of the wing

Had another Crescent Dart in the trap too, my third of the year...

All three have been males

 And although not rare, new species for the year included these...

Light Arches (with a Dark Arches for comparison)

A Shark

To finish off the post, I always like to leave moths in a safe place when I've finished with them. But I even found this Buff-tip a mate...

Or so it thinks....