Moth Mayhem

I said in my last post I was going to put the moth trap out on Monday night. I did indeed, and on Tuesday morning I had myself a whopping 266 moths of 56 species!  I wont list them all, just summarise..

Dark Arches were the most numerous, with 39 of these, followed by Heart and Dart (22).  The third most numerous species was Elephant Hawkmoth, with 19 in the trap! It was a good showing of Hawkmoth in fact, with four Poplar and three Eyed making a total of 26 Hawkmoths in the trap!

All three on this egg box

A better shot of an Eyed Hawkmoth

Some of the other highlights included:

True Lovers Knot

Green Silver-lines (had three of these)

Burnished Brass

Flame Carpet

Figure of Eighty

Lobster Moth

Common Emerald (with a Dot Moth to the left)

Plain Golden Y

The Plain Golden Y with a Silver Y

And these, although common species, were good to see for the first time this year...

Swallowtail

Light Emerald

Coronet - doesn't that look like a skull!

Even the small macros can be smart, like this Small Yellow Wave...

It's tiny but beautiful

And how about this Small Seraphim...

....what do you mean you can't see it? Try this....

...still struggling!? Well this is as close as I could get the camera...

How about that for camouflage!

I'll have the trap out again maybe tomorrow night. If not Friday night for sure. I might try a new trapping location too which is exciting!  

Since my last post about Black Hole Marsh autumn really has kicked off on the Axe. Although I've not seen any of it there's been a couple of Little Ringed Plovers, a Ruff and an Osprey.  Hopefully there's a biggy around the corner and hopefully I see it!

Back In Business

I couldn't sleep last night, the heat didn't help, but there was another reason... I was too busy listening to birds!

It's weird, during the day I don't hear any water birds from the house, but after dark I can hear so much from Black Hole Marsh. Last night I added Greenshank to the house list thanks to a very vocal bird interrupting the almost constant calls of Redshank. The odd Curlew and Oystercather called, and lots of Black-headed Gulls - this surprised me as I just presumed that during the summer they roost on the sea like they do in the winter. I even heard the wing beats of a Mute Swan (or two) fly past!

After hearing all this bird life at Black Hole Marsh, at 8am this morning I headed down there for a look, and I was impressed with what I saw.  Sadly the 230 Black-headed Gulls didn't include any goodies, although it did include nine juveniles though - weird looking things that they are!  There was a nice mix of waders on the marsh with Common Sandpiper being the most numerous (eight), along with a single Green Sandpiper. There were two each of Black-tailed Godwit and Lapwing, and a single Greenshank was in the corner by the Tower Hide.  Two Teal were my first of the 'autumn' - although I was cursing them for not being Garganey! I also saw my first juv Kingfisher of the year and a small number of Sand Martins overhead included some juvs. I'll be keeping my eye on this place from now, I really do fancy a nice Terek Sand!

I've been annoyed for much of today that I hadn't put my moth trap out last night, so I cheered myself up by looking at some other insects. Lower Bruckland Ponds is always the best place to go around here for some Odonata action!

It was really good to see lots and lots on the wing. Common Blue, Azure and Blue-tailed Damselflies were everywhere (no Red-eyed of either variety though), with Emperors patrolling most parts of the lakes. Saw my first Beautiful Demoiselle of the year too.  Photography was hard as nothing was staying still for long, although I did have chance to snap this Four-spotted Chaser...

Saw about five of these

And here's one of the many male Black-tailed Skimmers...

I was hoping for a nice Red-veined Darter, a species which have bred here, or better still another Lesser Emperor! No such luck though, not today anyway.

There were a few more ducks here than of late, in fact probably the most I've seen here all year. And amongst the moulting Mallards I was surprised to see two Shoveler...

Both males, I think an adult and a juv but I could be wrong

It was also pleased to confirm Little Grebes have bred here again. although I could only see one juv.

Right that's enough for now, I am over heating here in my office. Hopefully I'll have a moth trap out tonight, that's if I've not passed out from sun stroke by then! It really is hot!

An Exotic Couple Of Days

...is one way of putting it. But I suppose you could replace the word 'exotic' with 'plastic' or 'desperate'!!!

Whilst at work yesterday I got news of a Laughing Dove in a private Seaton garden. It's not a species I've really though about before in the UK - so phoned Phil to have a chat about its vagrancy potential. This was followed up by a tweet asking the same.  The conclusion I drew from all the comments was although there is a chance, the probability is overwhelmingly in favour of it coming from a cage. Oh well. I could spice it up a bit by saying "it's behaving wild","no rings", "elusive", but that's all meaningless.

I managed to see it after work, well I heard it first, singing away not far from my house...

Looking rare

Shortly after I saw it I was sent a few pics from the couple who first spotted it in their garden earlier in the day. Here's one of them...

(c) Peter and Lesley Clarke

It know it looks like it only has one foot, but it does have both, it's in mid step.

So how could it get any more exotic/plastic? Well a text this morning from Ian M that informed me of a female Mandarin on the Estuary. Now this is a less than annual bird on patch, and unlike the dove, is fully tickable for the patch year lister. So without hesitation I went down there to get my first patch year tick in over a month...

Naff record shot of a grey brown lump of feathers

So some mild excitement in mid summer. No where near as exciting as this though...

Yes, despite the fact Jess has spent time with me immediately after some horrendous patch dips (Garganey, Glauc and Caspian Gulls), and spent the whole entire last winter with the only patch birder in the whole of the UK who couldn't get Waxwing on their patch list (so a pretty miserable and frustrated chap!) she said yes.  And then there's all the early mornings/late nights/quick trips around the river/urgent patch twitches/last minute diversions/repetitive walks around certain sites... God the list could go one! To say Jess is understanding is the biggest understatment of the year!!

I can reveal it's not going to be a long engagement either - 2014 will be our year and we are really looking forward to our future together.

A Pre-Breakfast Wander

Actually went birding today! Didn't see anything of note really, but Black Hole Marsh at 05:30 this morning looked STUNNING...

Oooozing peace and tranquility

It was nice to see fledged Blackcaps (two families), Reed Warbler, and the three Oystercatcher chicks still looking good.  Two Sand Martins over the marsh were the first I've seen here for over a month, and a Siskin north over was a bit of an odd one for June!

I checked three new Swallow nests today, two still on eggs and one with really small chicks in.  Another brood of Blue Tits were ringed on Saturday too, and I confirmed the two broods I've already ringed have fledged.

I-Player Link

Here's the promised link for any who missed it...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b02yx2tc/?t=18m

Moth Overload!

First of all, thanks to all the texts/tweets/phonecalls/emails about yesterday's TV first. If you missed it I will put up a link to the BBC iplayer page, it is worth watching for the stunning Hoopoe footage.

Now if you are a tweeter, you would have seen most of these photos already, so I apologies. And if you really don't like moths, this post won't interest you (but please give it a look!). Also if you are a moth expert there's nothing that's going to set the world alight coming up, but I just get SO MUCH excitement from these critters - I have to share it! Each moth is stunning in its own right (well most of them anyway!) so please just scroll through and enjoy the variety.

I trapped at Mum and Dads on Tuesday and Wednesday night this week. With the muggy and still conditions there's no way I couldn't - perfect moth weather.  The numbers were lower than I expected, but overall I still managed 150 moths of 42 species.

And here's some of the best. Starting with the big guns...

Elephant Hawkmoth

Eyed Hawkmoth

Only the garden's second ever Lime Hawkmoth

The Lime Hawk with a Poplar Hawkmoth (Pop's are HUGE!)

Here's some of my other favourite macro moths that I caught...

Starting with the smallest, this isn't a bird dropping it's a Chinese Character!

Another white one, a Clouded Silver

Cream-spot Tiger, a relation to the Jersey Tiger that is a moth that can often be seen by day around here

Another view of the Cream-spot Tiger - it's a very colourful beast!

There are few distinctive Pugs, but this Foxglove Pug is one of them!

A not very Green, Green Carpet

Pale Tussock

Peppered Moth - black and white always does it for me!

Love the name of this one, Scorched Wing

Small Waved Umber, compare to last week's Waved Umber

White Ermine - Buff Ermine are far more regular for me but I've not had one yet this year

Alder Moth

 I was pleased to get an immigrant species too. No surprise that it was one of these though...

A Silver Y ready to fly!

And although (as yet) I don't really 'do' micro moths, I did notice this - another immigrant species...

Rush Veener

Ok moth-haters/moth-pro's, you can look again now! Post done. 

One Show Tonight...

Unless I'm on the edit room floor, I should be on the box tonight...

Colour-ringed Black-headed Gull

I had forgotten about this colour-ringed Black-headed Gull - well it was nearly a year ago!  I was reminded of it when the below document dropped into my inbox. Polish-ringed small Gulls aren't unusual for us, but check out the time between ringing and re-sighting...

Had the moth trap out last night, and it gave me 49 moths of 22 species. More details (and photos) to follow in another post when I've a bit more time...

Bird Ringing

Since moving into to our new place bird ringing has taken a back seat. Well not even that, it's been somewhere in the back of the trailer! Currently our garden isn't suitable for any form of bird ringing - there are just too many cats about. When I lived at Mum and Dad's, few cats, nice big green garden and lots and lots of birds meant it was ideal for bird ringing.

I can still go up to Mum and Dad's to do bird ringing, but instead of being able to put the nets out for an hour or two between other jobs like I used too, I'd now have to set a morning aside to do nothing but bird ringing. And this year I've just not had the time.

I am pleased to say though (and my Twitter followers will know this already) my ringing pliers have come back out over the past few weeks.  Not the mist nets yet though.

For me, the best thing about ringing pulli (that's nestlings) is that I'm also taking part in the BTO Nest Record Scheme. This is a very important and on going scheme as it is the only accurate way of monitoring the breeding success of birds in the UK. As I'm sure you know, you do not have to be a bird ringer to take part in the Nest Record Scheme - for more details see here: http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/nrs. I am very fortunate to have a ringing permit that enables me to ring the young as well, which adds the chance of another avenue of useful data coming from my nest visits.

Swallows are a keen interest of mine, and currently I am monitoring ten active nests. This total could increase dramatically in a week or so though!  Out of the ten, my first visit to each revealed eight nests of eggs and two nests of young. The young were easily big enough to ring and each of the two nests contained five birds.  One of the nests had really big young in which I thought were just a few days from fledging. A week later though and at least four are still snuggled in there...

You can only see two here, all five may well have been in there but I only saw a max of four.

The other nest of five was exactly the same nest I ringed six in last June. If they are the same parents, they are clearly bloody good parents!

As well as Swallows, I've ringed four broods of Tits. One nest with just two young Great Tits in that have just fledged, a box with six young Blue Tits in which should have just fledged (they looked ready to go two days ago), a box with seven Blue Tits that I ringed just a couple of days ago...

They've probably got about ten days left in the nest before fledging

And best of all, because they are on the Red List, a nest box containing two young Marsh Tits (and a cold egg). They were really quite big, with just a few mm of growth required on their outer primaries before being ready to go...

So nearly a 3J!

A follow up visit to the Marsh Tit nest confirmed they have successfully fledged. Fantastic news!

Expect more bird ringing-related post from now on...

My Moth Season Begins

There has been nothing in the way of moths or mothing on this blog so far this year. That's because I haven't done any!  Our new house and 'garden' just isn't suitable for a 125W MV bulb!!  Saying that though the first moth made it on to the house/garden list the other night, with a Green Carpet resting on the outside of the back door.

So, any mothing I do manage will be at Mum and Dad's, and this is where I set the trap on two occasions within the past few weeks. Both on very suitable mothing conditions, the evenings of 20th May and 2nd June.

The 20th May, although not a bad selection, was a very long way from what I would have expected considering the date and weather.  The final tally was 27 moths of 17 species. And here's some of them...

Least Black Arches

Clouded Border

Scalloped Hazel

Nut-tree Tussock

Pebble Prominent

Swallow Prominent

Sycamore

Waved Umber

Buff-tip side on

Buff-tip head on!

On the 2nd June there were just 12 moths of 11 species, very disappointing. So, although I have missed a lot of mothing opportunities this year, it would appear that I've probably not missed that much!

Before I sign off for the night, just a quick note to say I could well be on the One Show tomorrow (Monday 10th). There's a chance they may change the contents of the show last minute (apparently this happens quite regularly) but as it stands if you watch BBC1 between 7 and 7:30pm there should be a short piece on about Hoopoes.

Always Birding!

My brain always has birds at the front of it, which means my eyes and ears are always searching for anything bird-related. This often results in spotting ornithological-related errors in day to day life, which really amuses Jess as I always have to make some sort of comment if I see even the smallest mistake or inaccuracy!

It's not just birds, the other day I picked up an Exmoor Guide with a Monach butterfly on the front cover! I guess this is just natural when you have a vested interest in something, whatever it is! Stamps, trains, coins, whatever...

Anyway, back to birds, and check out this Chaffinch on an apron in a shop in Lynton...

 

..to be fair it is mostly not too bad. And the Redpoll below was bang on - a great painting. But what is going on with that belly!!??  Half way through painting did they accidentally flick the page over to Canary?

This was most surprising though. Somewhere in a dark hall way of Dunster Castle was this notice...

 ...one of the species looked like an odd one out to me! An American wading bird amongst UK breeders?? So I tracked them all down...

The Golden Eagle

A cracking Bittern

Chough

The Grebe - a Great Crested Grebe to me precise!

 And the Spotted Sandpiper...

Hmmmmm... Looks like a Ruff to me!!