Clouded Yellows

So yesterday (Monday 26/08) Dave & I headed over to Harrington Airfield for much of the day to look for migrants. Sadly birds were seriously thin on the ground, with just a couple of fly-over Yellow Wagtails & a pair of Raven. So yet again the butterflies though stole the show.

There had apparently been a few Clouded Yellows about so we headed to the grassland on the eastern side of the old airfield. Sure enough Dave soon picked up a male Clouded Yellow cruising around. We ended up having at least three bombing around along with tonnes of Common Blues and a handful of Small Heath.

After chasing them around for a bit, eventually one of the Yellows became far more showy, allowing us to get some great pics, before my battery promptly ran out! Dave then kindly let me put my card in his camera & I rattled off a few more images.

  











We left Harrington late afternoon & then finished at Summer Leys & the pits the other side of the road. Again birds were thin on the ground with a Black Tailed Godwit & a heard only Green Sandpiper from the main hide and a Common Sandpiper across the road.

Butterflies included 2 more Clouded Yellow, a couple of Small Copper flirting away & 1-2 Brown Argus, as well as good numbers of other commoner species.

Another top day in Norfolk with the gang

So on Sunday (11/08) Dave, Jon, Kirsty & I decided a grand day out in Norfolk was in order. The plan was to head to East Norfolk for the Horsey Roller. Also close-by was the small possibility of 2nd brood Swallowtail and after that anything else worth seeing in North Norfolk.

We arrived late morning and as soon as we got out of the car we had several Purple Hairstreaks flying around our head and the roadside Oak trees. Good start! We then headed off down the Nelson's Head Track down to Horsey Gap. The Roller was a few hundred yards south of Horsey Gap so it was a good old walk ahead of us.

We eventually arrived at Horsey gap in good sunshine. The dunes were full of butterflies with Dave latching onto his first Grayling and we were pleasantly suprised to find good numbers of Dark Green Fritillaries, a first for us and great to see having failed to find one at Aston Rowant the week before. I briefly had a Wall Brown and there. After the distractions of the butterflies we focused our attentions on the Roller.

It wasn't long before I was enjoying good but distant views of my first UK Roller sitting on a fence post. Happy days! It proceeded to sit there, before occasionally going down to the ground to feed. The colours on the bird were amazing, most obvious and spectacular when in flight.

After enjoying the Roller we turned our attention to the beach and dunes. On the Beach were a good old number of Grey Seals either waddling about or just having a doze!

There were several Grayling around the Dunes, being pretty inquisitive at times landing with one landing on my hand and camera (see Dave's photo below!)

  















We had further good views of several more Dark Green Fritillaries, as well as a couple of Painted Ladies among several other common species and tonnes of Silver Y Moths.

It was then time to walk back to the car, including a well earned pint at the pub. While there we had a single Crossbill over calling.
Next we went on to nearby How Hill to look for second brood Swallowtails. Despite there being a fair few butterfly species about, we failed to track down any Swallowtails. After an hour or so there we headed off to look around Cley and to hopefully see a Juvenile Red Necked Phalarope that arrived there the previous day.

We parked up by the East bank at Cley, before heading down to the beach, taking in Arnold's Marsh and then having a scan from North Hide. I really like Arnold's Marsh as it always holds a nice selection of waders. On show there were brief singles of both Grey Plover & Whimbrel, a Spotted Redshank (a belated year tick), good numbers of Black Tailed Godwit, a Bar Tailed Godwit, several Knot (both in summer & winter plumage) and all the other more common waders.

From North Hide we soon got onto the Juvenile Red Necked Phalarope, associating with a small group of Dunlin. There wasn't to much else here other than a rather lonely looking Golden Plover!

Before finishing the day at Kieran & Leila's, we popped into Kelling Water Meadows to see Wood Sandpiper. We weren't to be disappointed with at least one showing well along with a few Ruff, Snipe, a Dunlin, a Common Sandpiper, Greenshank, several Black Tailed Godwit & a showy male Stonechat.

We were then treated to a wicked BBQ at Kieran and Leila's in Holt. Great seeing them again, was a dead good laugh too! Big thankyou too for Kirsty for driving us about, sterling effort, much appreciated!

Night Heron

So a young Night Heron had been lingering at Thornton Reservoir in Leicestershire for nearly two weeks and with it being very close to the M1 I finally caved and headed there after work yesterday (Friday 09/08). It was a bird I've wanted to see for years and would be a long awaited lifer.

After getting very useful directions from Dave who went there last week, I headed round the left hand arm of the reservoir. After a bit of scanning I found it, Night Heron! He was roosting in the bottom of a willow. Over the next hour or so it performed brilliantly, sitting right out in the open for the most part, as well as doing a bit of fishing, as well as being briefly pestered by a Carrion Crow. Went away a very happy chap!

Day in Oxfordshire

Had a brilliant day out with Dave, John, Kirsty & Sam looking for rare butterflies in Oxfordshire. I think it's fair to say we had a bloody brilliant day with awesome company & personally seeing 4 butterfly lifers. The definate highlight had to be getting insane views of a freshly emerged Brown Hairstreak at Otmoor, as well as tonnes of Silver Spotted Skipper, Chalkhill Blues & several Brown Argus at Aston Rowant right next to the M40. Wicked day!

Painted Lady

Today (03/08) we had an unexpected visit from a Painted Lady on the garden buddleia for much of the morning an early afternoon:

Recents

Around the county

Yesterday (Sunday 21/07) I had a really early start to do the fourth and final Breeding Birds Survey for the RSPB around my big old chunk of Earls Barton GPs. Before I began, around 05:40am I had a quick look from the Summer Leys main hide to track down the long-staying adult Black Tern. It took me no more than 30 seconds to locate it, sat on Round Island with it's face just starting to come into moult. This was the first year tick I'd got in what seemed like ages so was good to see, especially in what had been a lousy year so far for Black Tern in the county.

The survey lasted the usual 4 and a bit hours. I actually managed to find a pretty decent selection of stuff with a hunting female Peregrine around 06:25am, a Barn Owl early on, an eclipse drake Garganey, 1 Black tailed Godwit, 1 Green Sandpiper, 5 Snipe, 3-4 juv. Yellow Wagtail, 1-2 Kingfishers & 4 Pochard The 'autumn' appears to have well and truely begun! Having said that there were still a few Warblers in song, especially Reed Warblers with 20 singing males counted.

After the survey, I met up with Dave and Sam and we headed off to the north of the county. On the way up we stopped off at Twywell Hills & Dales to have a quick look for Marbled Whites. We saw a pretty good number of them with the added bonus of my first two Essex Skippers and plenty of Six-Spot Burnet Moths. There had been a significant influx of Crossbill into the country of the last couple of days and so it wasn't overly surprising that we had 2 over calling, however they must have been pretty high up as we failed to actually see them.

We then headed onto Wakerley Wood to look for Crossbill. Sadly none were to be found despite a walking a big old circuit of the wood. Butterflies included 3-4 Silver-Washed Fritillaries and 2-3 White Admirals. My photos of the Fritillaries were all blurred as they kept vibrating their wings dammit! The two below were a couple of Dave's excellent shots:

Our final stop was Fermyn Woods in the hope of getting goods views of Purple Emperor. The weather however was not playing fair and pretty much the whole time it was cloudy. We did see quite a few Purple Emperors around the tree tops, however we failed to see any remotely close other than one which zoomed between us before heading for the treetops. Other things of note were 2 Purple Hairstreak, 2 Silver-Washed Fritillaries and several White Admirals & Commas.