Catch up Thurs to Sun

A few bits and bobs seen over the last few days but struggling to find the time to update regularly just lately! These are mostly summer migrants that are dropping onto my list, the moths have taken a serious back seat due to the cold weather.


Thursday - A quick pop into Wyver Lane at 5pm to see if there were many hirundines showing yet. The Oystercatchers put on a good show zooming between both pool whilst watching them from the mound. Also present were Lapwing, 2 x Shelduck, a number of Wigeon still, 2 x Teal, a Siskin flew over and then dropped into one of the trees along the lane. We chatted with a couple of guys who informed us that due to the showery weather (we turned up during a sunny patch) the hirundines had been down but had now dispersed. We did manage to find one Swallow though. Wyver looks really green now, the bit of rain has obviously helped the vegetation. Also found this Spider on the gravel on the viewing mound.

Friday afternoon - whilst Jordan was at his mates birthday I grabbed an hour down at Willington and decided to try and find Sand Martins over by the quarry side. This Chiffchaff was too close to ignore, and I heard a Willow Warbler (didn't see it though). After walking up to the railway bridge I'd spotted my first Orangetip for the year, and a number of Swallows were feeding around the birches along the railway. A couple of Buzzards were up on the thermals and whilst watching them I heard the familiar buzzing of Sand Martins. Sure enough after a quick search a party of 8 Sands together with 15 Swallows were heading north over the quarry. Great!

Sunday morning - a lovely sunny walk along the Greenway to Ripley saw a number of recently arrived migrants including Blackcap, Chiffchaff and a year first Willow Warbler, merrily belting out its pleasant descending song. Also had a pair of Bullfinch on the entrance near Peasehill.

Bird Yearlist = 129
Moth Yearlist = still stuck on 24 but with a brief reprise of the warmth on Monday/Tuesday it looks like I might actually be able to get the trap out!

Carsington Spring search

After the rain and cold conditions of Monday, my day off today with Jordan gave us time to enjoy the sunshine a bit. So I decided on a trip to Carsington to mop up a few of the summer migrants that have braved the weather. It still rained a bit, but the majority of the time it was dry and we had a great walk between Sheepwash and Lane End.

The wintering Great Northern Diver was seen from Sheepwash distantly, but by the time we had walked down to Lane End it had swum up the reservoir to be opposite the hide and we could make out that it was now moulting into summer plumage. This video shows some of the detail although it was still quite a way across the water from the hide. We also picked out the two Common Scoters that have been present for a couple of days, although they were very distant.



The walk down to Sheepwash Hide gave us ample views of the Primroses (above right) and running in and out of these and the fallen logs were a party of what I thought were mice. After watching them for a good half hour they had put on quite a show and I'd had sufficient views of them to think they were one of the voles. I didn't get good enough views to distinguish between Common and Short-tailed. As these were the first time I'd seen voles I really didn't stand a chance of getting the species. They didn't seem intimidated by us though as we stood there watching them. Jordan tried to capture them on film but they were a little too fast for the camera! Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs were singing, as were the Chaffinches and Thrushes. Not many ducks left now, but a pair of Teal, two Shelduck, several Mallards and Tufted Duck, Redshank, Oystercatcher and Lapwing were all seen from the hide. And best of all were the first Swallows of the year. Only two but that's good enough for me!

This picture (left) shows some sort of growth from a large species of tree at the start of the footpath from the car park at Sheepwash down towards Lane End. I've never seen this before and can't find it in my multitude of books on British trees. If anyone knows what this is I'd be interested. I'm going to return in a week or so and see what it's turned into! Not sure if its the leaf buds or seeds?
I also found several of these leafmines (above) on the brambles, again if any of my more learned watchers can identify it I'd be very grateful! Leafmines are a bit beyond me at this point in my Moth-career.

Swallow and Blackcap takes my Bird Yearlist to 126.

Bank Holiday Blues

After having scouted round a few of the blogs I follow, I'm going to start off with a recurring theme...that of the weather being so poor that I haven't really done much at all. But this does give me time to update the blog with the results from the trapping session at Carr Wood on Saturday and then back in the garden last night (despite the rain!).

Carr Wood trapping was not exactly a thrill a minute, but it was certainly very interesting. It was the first time that I'd trapped by myself (but I had help from my non-mothing brother and my very-eager-moth-er son) and all went very smoothly, although it was generally agreed that carrying the generator to the same spot next time was not going to happen! The thing is so damn heavy that I'm going to either need some wheels or invest in my own (smaller) genny. Other than that we had no bother. One guy did walk his dog past us, and after watching him cast his eyes over the wooden boxes, petrol can, sheets and then across to us three stood round looking sheepish I assumed that he'd ask us what the hell we were up to. But he just said "Hello" and carried on past!

On to the moths...We ran 1 x 80W MV and 1 x 15W Actinic/20W CFL combo and the MV lost by 6 moths to 9. Not a great total, but the temperature dipped from 10C to 7C by 2200hrs, at which point it started to rain so we decided to pack up at 2230hrs. 15 moths in just under 2 hours isn't that bad going for a new site. And I'm confident that some warm weather and a bit more growth will bring us a much bigger haul.

Moth list was:
Common Quaker x 6
Hebrew Character x 2
Clouded Drab x 1
Twin-spotted Quaker x 1
Chestnut x 2
Diurnea fagella x 1
Agonopterix heracliana/ciliella x 1
Agonopterix arenella x 1



Twin-spotted Quaker

Diurnea fagella



Agonopterix arenella (new for year)

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8th April 2012 - Garden

Due to the imposing rain clouds, and predicted downpours, I decided to run the Actinic/CFL combo (and also because it out-performed the MV last night!) and not risk blowing my new MV bulb up. I left it out all night, and crossed my fingers that it wouldn't rain too badly before 6am. But it did, quite a few millimetres actually but fortunately the hardy bulbs didn't give up and I ended up with a very bedraggled 7 moths.

Hebrew Character x 3

Early Grey x 2

Twin-spotted Quaker x 1 (did it follow us home from Carr Wood?)

Agonopterix heracliana/ciliella x 1

Looks like there won't be much action this week either as the temperatures are set to stay pretty low during day and night! Well, just have to look forward to sunnier times. After all we're ready for this rain (that's what my parents keep saying anyway!)

Ring Ouzel!

It's that time of year when one of my favourite birds graces our land. The Ring Ouzel is a wonderfully enignatic bird, found on the moors of Derbyshire but also at odd locations around the country on migration. These places turn up Ring Ouzel religiously year after year, and it always fascinates me why they decide to use these areas as stop-overs. I used to live in Luton and Ring Ouzel had a magnetic attraction to a little piece of chalk outcrop called Blows Down. This used to be my regular Ouzel pick-up point! However, nowadays Blows Down is too far, so yesterday we visited Berry Hill Fields, an equally Ouzel-friendly site. The similarity to Blows Down is amazing. An area of high ground, short cropped grass and low growing shrubs, sectioned off into a myriad of horse paddocks. And only a stones throw from the urban sprawl! Lying on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent, the number of birds that occur at Berry Hill on a yearly basis is staggering. Apart from the Ouzels, the site attracts Wheatear, Whinchat, Redstarts and many other passage migrants. After wandering around and trying to get used to the area, we stumbled on a birder who beckoned us over and pointed out the Ring Ouzel. It was a bit far away so could only grab this mobile shot through the scope. This Ouzel join four other members of the thrush family, including a late Fieldfare.

Armchair ticks

No! Not something I've caught from sitting in grannie's favourite chair, but with these cold nights and no mothing to be had I've got to fill my time somehow? So what better to do than review old photos (well, from 2009).

There, sitting in my 'moths from ages ago but didn't have enough knowledge to tell what they are' folder, was a photo taken on the wall of a pub called the Blue Boar, in Maldon, Essex when we were doing some drilling down in the Blackwater Estuary in September 2009.

If I'm not mistaken I can now confidently identify this as a Nut-tree Tussock, my 13 moth noticed before I actually started trapping (in spring of 2010). This puts my total moth tally to 385. Brilliant!

Still on 23 for this year though...although we're all set for Saturday night in the woods! Can't wait!

Snow joke!

Having missed an almost perfect night of conditions on Monday, I was really kicking myself when I woke up to 7 degrees on Tuesday morning! Having not trapped yet in April, due to the poor weekend weather, I thought I'd try last night. Despite it being cold (8 degrees by 9pm) I fired up the MV. By 10pm I'd caught 1 new for year! A Brown House Moth! But they all count, so that's good.

By 1030pm I'd had enough, not another sniff. In addition to this the wind had got up and it really looked like the supposed snow was coming to hit us.

By 530 this morning it had, and the garden was covered in two inches of the white stuff.

So glad I listened to the weatherman this time!!

Moth yearlist = 23

On Beeley Moor bar tat

1st April 2012 -
Short-eared Owl is one of my favourite of Britains owls, and although it's a fairly regular bird in the Midlands during winter I always tend to struggle finding them. I was reading the DarleyDaleWildlife blog and found some amazing pictures of 3 birds that are present on Beeley Moor, and probably have been all winter. So plans to visit this afternoon were put in place (this basically involves moving Sunday dinner to muchtime!).

Just time to make a small alteration to the moth-trap with my Dad and then we can be off. Dad was set to work chopping a bit of wood up and sanding it down as a lamp cross-piece to hold the new MV lamp (instead of using the tripod method that I'm currently employing). All was going well until my dad, whilst sanding down the side of the wood, managed to stab a splinter of the split wood through his finger end, and out the other side! After trying to extract it, we realised it was a hospital job, and 2 hours later we returned home with the splinter still in his finger, but with an appointment to see the hand specialist at Derby Royal.

So, slightly later than organised, we arrived at Beeley Moor and wandered over to Hob Hurst's House. It was such a beautiful day, and I've not been over Beeley in quite along time..it was certainly the first time that Jordan had been up there in his 10 years. He loved it too!

There wasn't loads of bird life to see, and we certainly didn't get a sniff of the owls but we did manage 3 x Buzzards and a Peregrine, tons of Meadow Pipits all displaying. Siskins were quite plentiful too with a cracking male displaying to a female only 10m away near Hellbank Plantation! Some Skylarks and Mistle Thrush were over by the house and on the return leg Jordan found this Mining bee. I've been reliably informed by Trev and Dilys at Eakringbirds.com that it is Andrena clarkella. Many thanks!

More time definitely needing to be spent exploring more of this moorland region, it's just so big and exciting, and I don't spend enough time there!