Birthday Barn Owls

Yesterday I enjoyed a brilliant day with family celebrating my 29th birthday (yes I know - it's the big one next year!) and late afternoon had a box full of surprises which topped the day off perfectly...

I was privileged to ring a very late brood of Barn Owls (on patch), and the bird pictured was one of the biggest! I was expecting to find two of three, but incredibly there were SIX huddled together in the box! I just hope it's not too many for this late in the season, really need the weather to remain decent for them.  It would be interesting to know if this was a second brood, or has followed on from a failed first brood or a late pairing.

Apologies for this blog being so quiet last week, have had my head buried in my laptop. However busy I am, now we have a dog pleasingly I HAVE to get out every morning. I walked Honey where ever I thought I might have seen some birds - most days this was Beer Head but I also went to Seaton Hole and Axe Cliff.  Monday and Tuesday last week were the best days, with Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Meadow Pipits all over Beer Head, and Tuesday also gave a group of six Spotted Flies.  Sadly nothing better though.

I did manage to squeeze in a visit to Black Hole Marsh last Monday and was amazed to see eight Ruff on the marsh which is an excellent count, the variation between the cute-faced dainty little females and the hulking great males is ridiculous!  Also saw two Little Stint with the Dunlin, and there were three here the following day.   

999

Had a couple of ring recovery details come through last night - always nice to see. Neither that exciting, but one I found quite interesting.

The first is sad, as it concerns a cat kill on a female Blackbird I ringed on 14th July 2011 in Mum and Dad's garden. This bird was already at least two years old when I ringed it, so when it was taken by a cat on 13th July 2014 it was at least five years old. It hadn't gone far mind, in fact it was found less than 10m from where I ringed it!  Unlike my second...

A Blue Tit (a species that rarely give good recoveries as they often don't move much) I ringed in Mum and Dad's garden on 24th August 2011 as a bird of at least one year old, was re-caught at a nest box at Bucehayes, Stockland, Devon on 19th May 2014 by an A W G John. This is a gap of 999 days, and a distance of 15km. Not far in the grand schemes of things but really interesting that is was breeding here and not closer to Seaton which is what I would presume.  A good age too as if it's still going today it's at least four years old.

This year as you will have seen on this blog I have ringed a lot of long distance migrant birds, and I really hope I get some recoveries from these. Over the coming years I intend to ring a lot more migrant birds too, and want to add to the overall and ever changing picture of bird migration.

Willow Warbler  Beer Head 1st April 2014 - the first of 134 that I've ringed at Beer Head this year

Beer Head

Since the last post I have managed two short ringing sessions on Beer Head, one with Peter on Wednesday 3rd and a couple of hours by myself on Monday 8th.

On the 3rd 28 birds were trapped and ringed, with 26 of these being 'new' birds. No stand out species, but it was mostly about Sylvia Warblers with ten new Blackcaps and three Whitethroats trapped, along with two already ringed Blackcaps.  The Blackcap re-captures were interesting as it shows I'm catching local breeding birds and not just passing migrants, with one of them being a male I ringed here back in May, and the other a young bird I first caught as a 3J (which means still in juvenile plumage - so almost certainly hatched on Beer Head) in the middle of August.

I will do on a post on Blackcap ageing one day in far more detail, but here's three head shots all showing first-year male Blackcaps, and the various extent of brown on the cap. The top bird had completed it's post juvenile moult, the middle and bottom birds were still in the process of their PJ moult, but they will probably retain some of those brown cap feathers even after their moult has finished.

3m Blackcaps

Other birds ringed included singles of Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Goldcrest (the second ringed of the autumn), and a nice trio of Long-tailed Tits - my first ringed at this site.

In my last ringing related post I mentioned about the partial post juvenile moult in passerines, and that some species actually complete a full moult in their first autumn - replacing all their flight and tail feathers. Well Long-tailed Tit is one of those species, but all three of our birds could still be aged as first-year birds (3's) as they hadn't completed their moult yet.

They had replaced all of their primaries, although the last couple we still growing, but were only part the way through their tertial, secondary and greater covert moult. The browner and more worn juvenile feathers are pretty obvious to see, but hopefully the red lines will help. You can see a half grown secondary feather along the middle red line and the arrow is pointing to the replaced adult tertial feather. Compare the condition of replaced tertial with the older juvenile one above it - the old one has little nicks at the tip and along the edge of the feather, this is natural feather wear and a brand new feather wouldn't show this. If I was to catch these birds in maybe a week/ten days time I'm pretty sure they would have completed their moult, and would be aged as '2's' on plumage (the age code for haven't a clue - could have been born in any year).

Yesterday I caught just ten birds, but eight of these were migrants so I was still happy; three Blackcaps, three Willow Warblers and two Chiffchaffs.

I've been up Beer Head again this morning, but only for a quick dog walk.  There was a real late autumn feel to it, with crisp blue skies, a chill in the air, and heaps of Meadow Pipits flying about.  Also saw ten Wheatear, three Grey and two Yellow Wags, five Blackcap, three Whitethroat and a handful of Chiffchaffs. Sadly no Wrynecks.

New Bird For The Patch

Well it all went a bit mad here yesterday!!

What was thought to be a Spotted Crake was seen yesterday morning from the Island Hide at Black Hole Marsh. For some stupid reason I decided not to go and see it as I have so much to do at the moment and we were treated to superb views of this species here last year.  Thankfully though Black Hole Supremo Sue Smith did, and on seeing it thought something wasn't quite right - pale stripes on the birds back, a pale face and front and she also thought the whole birds shape look wrong.  

It wasn't until it was approaching late morning that noises came out this bird may not be a Spotted Crake, at which point I shot down there. Sue, Phil and a few other were there, and we were soon joined by Dave H. There was no sign. Something that was there though was Sue's camera, and she showed us this distant photo (the conditions were dull and foggy when she took it)....

(c) Sue Smith

Sue was right - this was no Spotted Crake!!!!! Although not a clear shot, it does show a delicately shaped crake/rail with a pale breast and rich brown coloured upperparts. Well either that or a Reed Warbler!

I could only give it until midday then had to come away, still no sign.  Thankfully though Dave H sat it out, and whist munching on his BLT at about twenty past one there it was! And in exactly the same place it was seen this morning.  30 minutes later I was back down there and soon enough this beautiful bird appeared and performed really well for ten minutes, before I had to prematurely leave it for work. I love Crakes - they just look so rare. I don't love how elusive they can be though. Yesterday it showed well until about 15:25, but then was only seen for a ten minute spell from 18:00 and that was it. It is still there this morning though.

I'm pleased to say that all patch birders have seen it now (unlike that wretched Cuckoo!), even Gav dusted off the bins to add this bird to his patch list. Nice to see you again Gavo.  Hopefully Sue will put some of her photos from the afternoon views of the Crake on her blog, as she got some good ones in the end.  Long lense Tim got a few pics too, he's uploaded one on to his blog. 

For those who have not seen it yet, I hope this helps...

Hopefully will be able to blog again later today or this weekend, with details on a Wednesday morning Beer Head visit.

Redstart Ageing

Yesterday sounded like a great day at Beer Head, with Phil noting 40+ Willow Warblers, four Whitethroats, three Spot Flies, three Tree Pipits, two Whinchats and a Reed Warbler. As a result I was eager to get up there this morning, especially as a veil of cloud had rolled over and even produced some pre-dawn drizzle. Perfect.

Sadly though in reality it was soon pretty obvious that most/all of  yesterdays birds had moved off - probably during the clear weather ahead of the front - and very little had dropped in to replace them. Saying that though we still ringed 23 birds from two mist nets, with two Dunnocks and a Wren being the only (presumed) resident birds.

The best of the captures was this lovely Redstart that appeared in front of us several hours after dawn, and flew straight into my 60 foot net...

There's more than enough visible in the above photo to age and sex this bird. What do you think it is? 

This photo should do it if the above didn't.  A bird with this much orange on its breast has to be a male, along with those black centred throat feathers.  You may notice though it's lacking a white forehead stripe, has a dull greyish brown crown, and the black throat feathers have broad white/off-white tips - well this makes it a first year bird.

And now I'm going to break with tradition for this blog and get a bit technical...

All juvenile passerines under go a post juvenile moult which starts not that long after fledging. Unlike adult complete moults, post juvenile moults are partial moults and include only a small numbers of wing feathers and only very rarely the main flight feathers (primaries and secondaries)*.  The wing feathers most often replaced during post juvenile moults are the greater coverts (GC's), with some birds replacing all of these, some replacing none, but most replacing a few. This gives ringers a very helpful ageing tool as in theory any passerine showing two different age classes of GC's is a year old or less. This moult limit will show in a bird until it undergo its first complete adult moult when ALL the GC's are replaced.  *Some species do a complete post juvenile moult (House Sparrow, Long-tailed Tit to name two), and some individuals of other species by some freak have been known to have complete post juvenile moults when they really shouldn't.

Anyway, here's the greater coverts of this mornings Redstart...

And here they are again with some red lines and words...

Notice how different they are. The new inners ones (the GC's are always moulted from the inside out) are rounder, almost blue in colour, grey edged with narrow brown tips, with the seven remaining juvenile GC's being dull with pale brown edges and tips.  They will stay this way for a little under a year, although as the feathers wear and fade it will become less obvious.  Now look at the first photo again and see if you can spot it on the closed wing.

Tails are also often big helpers in ageing passerines, with young birds tails often being pointed and more worn compared with rounded and newly grown adult ones.  This tail shape difference isn't so obvious in Redstarts, but look how abraded the tips are, plus I think the dull/dark tips and marks on some of the feathers is an age thing too and wouldn't be seen on an adult Redstart....

I think that's enough for today's lesson!

We also caught six Blackcap, six Robin, four Chiffchaff, two Whitethroat, one Willow Warbler and a Goldcrest.  Apart from a few large flocks of hirundines and the odd Yellow Wag, very little was flying over. Two Whinchats and a Wheatear were the only other grounded migrants I saw.

The weather looks good for the rest of the week, so I hope to fit in another ringing session at some point.

Plan B

Today, Plan A was ringing at Beer Head. I've been desperate to get in a good session up here, so was up there at 5:30 this morning and walked out to my ringing spot.  I have absolutely no idea why I bothered walking out there though as the moment I stepped out the car I could see it was far too windy to even contemplate mist netting.  Bugger it. Plan B it was then - but I didn't have a plan B! Seeing as I was up, and there was an east wind blowing, I headed to the beach for a sea watch.

I arrived way before dawn, but could already see Gannets streaming east close in. Within an hour and a bit at least 160 Gannets flew by, but sadly not much else did, with just three Common Scoter, one Teal, three Oystercatcher, four Dunlin, two Common Tern (juv and ad) and a Sandwich Tern in the note book.  

The best bird was this cracking first-winter Yellow-legged Gull settled on the beach, but sadly it disappeared before the sun came up so apologies for the dull and grainy pic...

A nice white-headed example

The sunrise was quite odd. Well there wasn't one due to the cloud cover, but there must have been a gap somewhere as the white cliffs of Beer Head became red...

No sun anywhere else. Made the chalk look like sandstone!

I had another look over the sea late morning during a rain shower. There was still very little/nothing passing, but I was pleased to have much better views of the first-winter Yellow-legged Gull on the beach...

Pale almost white ground colour to the underparts, very white head with hints of a darker eye-mask, rich brown uppers (making it look very contrasty) and crucially lots of moulted first-winter scapulars.

See what I mean about the contrasty look to it, flanked here by two juv Herring Gulls (note how the left hand Herring has moulted some scapular feathers already). Also those long and mostly dark tertials really stand out. It was a bigger bird too, although doesn't look like it in this pic as it's slightly further away. That's a juvenile Great Black-backed Gull in the foreground, these nearly always show that 'frosty' appearance.

In flight it showed the typical white tail (clean white in the top corners) with neat and fairly narrow black tail band, and a restricted pale inner primary window. Watching it flying around with Herring Gulls showed it was obviously longer winged, and the paler underparts really made it stand out.

Later I saw it again on the Estuary, along with a decent number of Great and Lesser Black-backed Gulls (some of the latter looking very dark backed), 19 Dunlin and 11 Ringed Plover. The biggest surprise was seeing a flock of 14 commic Terns flying rapidly south down river and off out to sea. I got on them too late to ID, and have a feeling we may have missed several more groups doing this as all the Tern passage in south Devon was southward.

And that's pretty much my birding day. So although it didn't go at all to plan, and we missed out on a lot of the action seen elsewhere in Devon, it was still an enjoyable one. 

I'll finish this post with a photo I took a few days ago, when the weather was much calmer...

Taken pre-dawn at Black Hole Marsh

A Quick Update

Not had much time since my last blog post as have been working day shifts. Am back on nights now so hopefully will be able to get out a bit more (although have got weeks worth of laptop work to catch up on too!).

Last Friday, this is what the start of the nightly Portland Bird Obs update read: 

"With any luck today's dismal showing will represent something of a low point in this autumn's birding..."

Sadly this was also the day I woke up at 5am and headed to Beer Head with my mist nets!  It was dismal, the bushes were empty as were my nets. I did manage to catch two migrants, singles of Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler, and they were the only migrants I saw whilst up here so that's a migrant catch rate of 100%! I knew I would have duff sessions up here sooner or later, and am glad it took so long to come - still disappointing though. Especially when considering that during a quick walk up here a few days before (Wed) the bushes were full of Willow Warblers, Chiffchaffs, Whitethroats, Blackcaps and even two Garden Warblers right by my net rides...

One of the two Garden Warblers

I have managed a couple of early morning visits to Black Hole Marsh since my last blog post, lovely views and sights but nothing better than a couple of Ruff, a Little Ringed Plover and the usual array of other waders, gulls and ducks...

Little Egrets at dawn

It's not just been Little Egrets about, as last Friday a Great White Egret spent most the day in the valley. There's some cracking photos about of it, all I managed was a distant view from the Farm Gate.

There's still good numbers of gulls about, with a sweep of the Estuary last Thursday giving two lovely juv/first-winter Yellow-legged Gulls. One was a big classic one, the other a small and slighter individual but so contrasty and pale - it was a stunner.  There was also this thing that I scratched my head about for a while, but have decided it can only be a Herring Gull...

Heavy-billed and strikingly pale headed

Just a Herring Gull though.

I think the biggest surprise though was seeing the last two air-worthy Lancaster Bombers fly low east over the patch on Saturday evening. I'm not into planes like many I follow on Twitter, but they took my breath away and I felt very privileged to see them...

Pity it took me so long to get my camera out!

Beer Head

So I've been able to give Beer Head two more visits with the mist nets, last Friday and Monday just gone. Both sessions were fairly brief (dawn until mid morning), and both involved just two mist nets (a 60ft and a 40ft).

Friday started breezy and clear, but thankfully the wind soon died down and the session turned out to be quite a success.  Although the variety could have been better, I was more than pleased with 37 new birds trapped and ringed;

My able helper for the morning Peter, with the haul from the second net round (all two nets!).

Pleasingly, 18 of the 37 birds were Willow Warblers (4 ads, 14 juvs), with the other migrant birds trapped being six Blackcaps, four Chiffchaffs and a surprise juvenile Swallow.  I think most/all the Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs were probably Beer Head (or nearby) breeding birds, and the Swallow could even have been too, but the Willow Warblers would all have been on their southward migration.

Later that day I was pretty chuffed to learn the ringing team operating at Durlston Head (a migrant hot spot in south Dorset) that morning caught fewer birds than me (29). Sorry chaps, but to a backwater ringer at a new site which attracts far less migrants - that's very pleasing to hear!  It will probably never happen again though.

Monday morning was even windier, and sadly the wind never dropped. Wind + sun = not good mist netting conditions.  A nice bonus thanks to the early start was seeing Venus and Jupiter low to the east...

Venus is the brighter looking dot

This is the closest they've been to each other (looking from Earth) since 2000

Only caught ten birds in the couple of hours we were ringing - not the best session for local C ringer Doug to have joined me for the first time!  There were clearly very few migrants around, with singles of Willow Warbler, Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler trapped and ringed...

The Sedge Warbler (a young bird) was the first I've trapped up here - so made the session worthwhile.

Interestingly, amongst the ten birds ringed were five 'new' young Robins (all had completed their post juvenile moult), which i think were migrant birds. We didn't catch any during the Friday session which would also support this theory.

Birds that I saw but didn't ring during these sessions included on Friday a surprise Green Sandpiper over, along with a Ringed Plover and a Yellow Wagtail. And on Monday my first Tree Pipit of the autumn lingered for about half an hour before flying west, with two more Yellow Wags over.

Down The Beach

Over the last week local fisherman have been on cloud nine.  For some reason absolutely huge numbers of whitebait have come close inshore, and these have been followed by thousands of mackerel. Locals who've lived here for 40 years haven't had it like this before, with shoals even coming in to the harbour where people have been able to catch them with nothing more than landing nets! It was amazing watching the whole harbour 'boil' with fish.

Bizarrely, many of the whitebait were even jumping out of the water and on to the beach, presumably to escape the mackerel...

It's not just people who have come to get some fish, large numbers of Gulls have been here daily with up to 2000 along the beach most of the time...

Despite regularly checking them, I haven't found anything better than two different juv Yellow-legged Gulls.  The second one was actually on the Estuary, and I just about managed to get a picture of it...

The one coming in to land.  You can see a dark secondary bar, and a very white tail with a narrow black tail band

Gannets have also been loving the food, with 300 in an hour early on Thursday. The biggest surprise came on Thursday afternoon though, when whilst out driving in the works van I spotted an Osprey fishing just off the beach!  And amazingly it's still here - I've seen it fishing out there every day since...

It was raining and very gloomy when I took this pic

Sorry chaps, you will never be as good as the bird flying above you!

Friday morning of last week I had my second Beer Head ringing session of the autumn. I will update all on that another day as it's time for bed...

Grrrrrrrreat Shearwaters

Over sleeping wasn't an option for this morning, as I knew there was a chance of a Large Shearwater patch tick.

Impressive numbers of Cory's and Great Shearwaters have been reported from the pelagics off the Scillies for about a week or so, with numbers peaking just a couple of days ago. During the early hours of today the tail end of Hurricane Bertha was forecasted to hit our shores, which had the potential to push some of these birds this way.  Unfortunately it could have been a lot better, the wind turned westerly at about 9am which killed all passage, and more cloud cover was needed as the sun shone from about 08:30 here.  There was plenty of rain though, and the wind up until 9am was perfect for sea watching.

I was up at 05:30, but despite the above paragraph I didn't go sea watching straight away.  It was absolutely lashing down and knew that I probably wouldn't be able to see the sea let alone birds over it - so I went to Black Hole Marsh.  Here were my first two Little Ringed Plovers for almost a month (juvs), along with a Wood Sandpiper, four Ringed Plovers and 18 Dunlin.

Could only see the one today, there have been two for a few days.

Then it was to the sea, and the Beer shelter at 7am.  Here I found Ian M, who had been sat for some time but hadn't seen much due to the heavy rain. Luckily though from when I arrived, the visibility improved for the most.  There were still some showers during the first hour but they all moved through fairly rapidly.

The first half hour was quiet, only a couple of Manxies and the usual Gannets. But when it cleared a little more, an Arctic Skua came through west along with a few more Manx.  Then came a text from Lee "Great Shearwater lingering off Dawlish Warren". This was the best news - at least one big shear was in the bay!  And if one was in the bay, there could be more...

We continued watching, a Balearic (my first of the year) came through with some Manx, 27 Common Scoter flew by (2w, 25e), then another two Balearics passed close west.  But no big shears.

At about 08:30 my phone rang, it was Lee who had kindly phoned to let me know Matt had seen a further two Great Shears past Exmouth, which he had also seen from the Warren.  For some reason though this news didn't excite me further, but totally deflated me. I just knew we had blown it; the sun was beginning to shine and sky turning blue, the wind had started to veer west and as a result sea passage had dried right up.  We were just that little bit too far east. And even if Matt's two Great Shears had come past us, it would probably have been when we were engulfed with heavy rain.  Gutted - absolutely gutted. So near yet so far.

There are still only three species of Shearwater on my patch list. 

Still need to work hard on that "Find the Great Shearwater" command...

Before I sign off for the night, must just mention a few nice highlights from Black Hole Marsh over the past week. The Curlew Sandpiper that was first present on Monday was joined by a cracking summer plumaged Knot the following day (see Tim's excellent pic of it HERE).  Gull passage seems to have eased off a bit lately, with this Med Gull being the only one that I've seen all week...

I have seen it several times though

Back To Beer

My first ringing session of the autumn up Beer Head was supposed to happen at the end of last week, but due to a poorly pup it got postponed to today....

I didn't have long, so only put up a single 60 foot net for a couple of hours.  Really wish I had more time as I reckon a couple more nets and a couple more hours would have given me 50+ birds.  It was one of those mornings that the bushes often looked quiet, but then all of sudden a little group of birds would flit through and quickly head off, with another group moving through say ten minutes later, and so on and so on. I probably saw about 30 Willow Warblers and five Whitethroats, but if I had walked around more I'm sure I would have seen much more. 

I'm pleased to say I did catch some migrants, with the first migrant netted being a new one for the list of species ringed on Beer Head. It's a very predictable one though, and I was amazed I didn't ring one in the spring...

Common Whitethroat

And in keeping with my thoughts of birds moving through in tight groups, the five Willow Warblers I caught were all in the net at the same time! 

Will never get bored of ringing Willow Warblers - I just hope I get some recoveries out of them.

The two Blackcaps I caught clearly weren't passing migrants, as one of them was a juv still in full juvenile plumage (a '3JJ' in ringers talk).

There were lots of Swallows flying low overhead, along with a few Sand Martins, but I soon realised I wasn't going to catch any of them...

It's a pleasure to provide you with a resting spot Mr Swallow.

They aren't daft - especially with clear blue sky behind the net and sun shining on the net.

Later on in the day after a text from Dad, I nipped to Black Hole Marsh to see a stunning adult Curlew Sandpiper, you won't see many redder than this one - it's a cracker!  There were fewer Dunlin and Ringed Plover on the marsh today, but still singles of Wood Sand, Greenshank and adult Med Gull. Looking south from the marsh I was delighted to pick up a juv Yellow-legged Gull circling low over the fields - my long awaited first juv of the year!  It flew north towards Black Hole before turning west overhead and landing in a nearby field. I went to where it appeared to land afterwards and soon picked it up amongst 300+ Herring Gulls feeding behind a plough. It was always too distant for pics but great to see never-the-less, mostly because I was beginning to worry why I hadn't found any yet this summer. It hasn't been a great year for them so far (probably due to the lack of stormy weather?) but I had started to double and triple check gull flocks that in previous years I'd only need to look through once, just in case I was going a bit gull-blind!

Wood Sandpiper

Beer Head Is Calling...

....and loudly!

Many of the usual migration hot spots have already had some decent passage this 'autumn', so this morning I nipped up Beer Head with some tools to make sure the net rides were cleared and ready for some autumn ringing.  I should have done that last week though and taken my nets up this morning, as flitting around my net rides were half-a-dozen Willow Warblers and this Redstart...

Hopefully it'll hang around for a few days...

I've forgotten how good Beer Head is for butterflies, lots of lovely long grass about to attract them.  Saw my first Clouded Yellow of the year (a nice male) and several Marbled Whites in this short visit...

Great White Garden Tick

Have actually got some bird news to blog about! And I'll start with this morning, I was down Black Hole Marsh early doors for a pre-breakfast bird binge...

A lovely Wood Sandpiper was without doubt the highlight, showing well in front of the platform at the far end.  There were plenty of others waders around too with the water levels looking perfect to draw in a good rare - hope it does too as it's about time I found something half decent!  

Also present 05:45-06:45 were; 8 Teal, 400+ Black-headed Gull, 2 Med Gull (ad and juv), 1 Common Gull, 8 Lapwing, 10 Dunlin, 15 Blackwits, 1 Greenshank, 3 Green Sands and 15 Common Sands.    

As expected for late July, I've seen a fair few Med Gulls, including an impressive nine on the Estuary late morning today (eight juvs and an adult). I also had four (an adult and three juvs) on the Estuary on Wednesday, and on Tuesday morning during a sea watch four more (two ads and two juvs) flew past west. With the ever increasing numbers I wonder how many others fly past the beach when no ones looking...

As well as the Meds, the Tuesday morning sea watch from Spot On (05:45-06:45) showed; 5 Mute Swan (out then east), 31 Canada Goose (all in from east, some flew in off and others continued west), 16 Common Scoter, 110 Manx Shearwaters (all blogging about feeding), 1 Redshank (out then west) and 1 Common Sandpiper. Sadly no big white birds....

Early on Thursday morning whilst Ian M was sea watching he had a Great White Egret fly in off just after 6am, which then lingered in the river valley.  My alarm was set for 06:50, and on seeing the texts jumped up and watched the valley from the house.  About 15 minutes later there it was, flying down river past the Black Hole Marsh area, it seemed to continue flying south too. My third Egret sp. on the house list!  About an hour and a bit later it was in west Dorset at West Bexington and then Abbotsbury - so as usual our little valley proves not big or attractive enough to hold a Great White for long.

I will keep this an insect-free post, but to pre-warn you, Wednesday night was an absolute mega moth night with 406 moths of 68 species in one trap at Mum and Dad's!  So more moth photos coming soon...

Missing Moth Migration

I really need to sort out a way that I can moth trap in rain, as over the weekend I missed some really good moth immigration (take a look at the Portland Bird Obs website).

With last night being the first forecasted dry night, I trapped at Mum and Dads. Despite the lack of anything exceptional, it was nice to see some of the mid summer species as I've not done any mothing for over a month!

Out of the 151 moths of 45 species, this Herald took some beating...

Herald

Although for the 'wow factor', Black Arches aren't too shabby...

Male Black Arches

And how about this Scorched Carpet...

Scorched Carpet

Although annual here, Crescent Dart is quite a localised species, so I always like seeing them...

A worn male Crescent Dart

This is small and not that spectacular, but it was nice to trap as I've only caught one before...

Least Carpet

Look out a Shark...

A Shark

And it wasn't quite a blank catch for migrants, thanks to one of these...

Silver Y

I have to say, Honey was a very good and patient girl whilst I was emptying the trap. Although I suspect she would have loved to have been able to chase the moths around the garden!

I will keep this post insect related and mention the wander around Lower Bruckland Ponds with Jess the other day.  It was nice to see Small Red-eyed Damselflies again, with most on the top pond. Lots of males were visible along with a couple of ovipositing pairs.

Male Small Red-eyed Damselfly

And I just had to take a pic of this Common Blue Damselfly munching on its dinner...

Common Blue Damselfly

I don't have any earth shattering bird news, so the few bits of slight interest can wait to the next post.