The gulls are back!!

 I went to Rufford CP yesterday for my first gull trip of the autumn/winter. There were c55 Black-headed Gulls present (2 juveniles) and a single Lesser Black-backed Gull (1st summer?). 

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Unfortunately, I didn't spot any darvic (colour-ringed) birds, but I did spot an adult metal-ringed Black-headed Gull, with the number FN91.593. It appears to be a Polish bird, and a record has been sent off, so I'll update the blog as soon as I get the information back.

FN91.593

Also present were: Greylag and Canada Geese, Mallard, Swallows and House Martins. 2 male Banded Demoiselles were also see.

UPDATE: The gull was Polish, and it had been ringed, as a pullus, in Warsaw, on 17th June 2018, a distance of 1509km away.

Silver-washed Fritillaries at Linacre!

 Last year, I saw a photograph of a Silver-washed Fritillary that had been taken "near Linacre". Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any more details, so the record didn't go any further. Earlier this week (13th) I received a video of this species from one of the regular volunteers, taken on a field just beyond the boundary of the site. This morning, Jayne and I popped up to see if we could find the butterflies, and we did, with two males being seen.

Silver-washed Fritillary

The area where the Fritillaries were seen also had 10+ Meadow Browns, 3 Commas and  1 Gatekeeper.

Gatekeeper

After looking at these butterflies, we walked around the top and middle reservoirs, where we found 4 Tufted Duck ducklings and 2 juvenile Little Grebes (middle reservoir), along with 29 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (site record) and 2 Herring Gulls. Other insects seen include Blue-tailed and Common Blue Damselflies and 3 Brown Hawker dragonflies (first of the year).We then walked down to the bottom reservoir to look for Purple and White-letter Hairstreaks. Although it was very warm (23 degrees), the area where we were looking wasn't quite in the sun enough, and we only managed to spot one White-letter high up in the trees.

Lindrick Dale - 2nd July 2022

On Saturday, Jayne and I had our annual trip to Lindrick Dale, near Worksop. It was about 20 degrees, with quite a lot of  cloud cover and also quite windy, but, we still managed to spot the butterflies we'd gone to see, and two species for us there as well!!

First up, the "usual suspects", namely Dark Green Fritillary (c.10), Marbled White (c.5), Silver-studded Blue (just 2, one male and one female), Meadow Brown (c.5), Ringlet (3) and Gatekeeper (1).

Dark Green Fritillary

The two new species were a single 6-spot Burnet, and, most surprising, a pair of mating Silver-washed Fritillaries!!

Silver-washed Fritillaries

In addition to the butterflies, Jayne also noticed this gall on a rose plant, that turns out to be a Robin's Pincushion, also known as a bedeguar gall. This is created by the gall wasp, Diplolepis rosae, that lays an egg in the rose's bud in spring. The larvae then develop inside the gall, before emerging as adults, next spring to begin the cycle again.

Robin's Pincushion

Linacre - 2nd July 2022

 This morning I had my first visit to Linacre for a few weeks. It was just 13 degrees, overcast, windy and drizzling on and off (!), but I still had a walk around all three reservoirs. 

Water bird numbers were average for the time of the year, with the following birds see: Mallard (98, with 80 adults and 18 ducklings), Tufted Duck (29 birds, including 27 adults and the first 2 ducklings of the year), Mandarin Duck (16 adult birds), Little Grebe (2 birds, 1 adult and 1 juvenile), Great-crested Grebe (2 birds, 1 adult and 1 juvenile), Grey Wagtail ( 4 birds,1 adult and 3 juveniles), Moorhen (16 birds, 10 adults and 6 young), Coot (18 birds, 8 adults and 10 juveniles) and Cormorant (2 young birds).

The woods were quite quiet, but Chiffchaff (1), Blackcap (1), Blackbird and Song Thrush were heard singing. In addition, House Martin was heard, but not seen, whilst I had my first Linacre Swift record of the year (!), when 10 were feeding over the middle reservoir.

A single Brown Hare was seen on the bank of the top reservoir, as was my first Black and Yellow Longhorn Beetle of the year.