Yorkshire Black-winged Stilts

 This year has seen a large influx of Black-winged Stilts, with at least 3 pairs so far known to be breeding (2 at RSPB Frampton Marsh) and 1 at Edderthorpe Flash, which is part of the RSPB Old Moor/Dearne Valley reserves.

This morning, Jayne and I drove across to Edderthorpe to see the birds. We found them straight away, but only aw the adult birds, not the four chicks. Whilst there, we also saw a Great White Egret, Avocets ( a minimum of 5 adults and 8 chicks, but probably a lot more), a Grey Heron , Cettis Warbler (singing) and 1 Little Ringed Plover.

Black-winged Stilt

Afterwards, we drove across to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where we had a walk around the grounds, spotting a Mullein Moth caterpillar, 13 Mute Swans (7 adults and 6 cygnets), c.200 Sand Martins, c.20 Swifts, c.20 House Martins, Canada Geese, Greylag Geese, a juvenile Grey Heron, Mallard and Great-crested Grebes. There were very few insects around, as it was very windy, overcast with a few rain showers, but we did spot a couple of Ringlets and also managed to see our first Gatekeeper of the year.

Gatekeeper

Year List update - 171 Black-winged Stilt

North Wales' Insects

Following on from my last post about some of the insects Jayne and I saw at RSPB South Stack I thought I'd write another post to show some of the species we saw in the Happy Valley Park in Llandudno, and at the National Trust's Bodnant Garden.

First off, Llandudno. We found this small park on the base of the Great Orme and spent a couple of hours here over two days. The highlight for me was finding a new species, Brown Argus. This is  quite a tricky species to identify, but, eventually, I managed to identify both males and females.

Brown Argus (female)

Brown Argus (male)

We also had Common Blue Butterflies and a Silver Y moth here, along with another new species for me, Mullein Moth. We didn't see the moths, but we did manage to see the very colourful caterpillars.

Mullein Moth

On Tuesday, Jayne and I spent a couple of hours at Bodnant Garden, just outside Llandudno. The weather was great, very warm and sunny, and we managed to spot some damselflies including Common Blue, Azure, Large Red and Beautiful Demoiselles, all of which were breeding.

Beautiful Demoiselle (male)

Beautiful Demoiselle (female)