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.