Little Bustard - LIFER!

News of a Little Bustard in West Yorkshire broke earlier this week. As it is a lifer, I thought I'd drive up to see it today. When I arrived, it had gone into hiding, but, after an hour and a half it decided to come out again, and put on a good show for the next hour. It never came nearer than about 200m, but I managed great 'scope views. Here are a couple of heavily cropped photos.

Little Bustard

Since my last Year List update, I've also added another 4 "year ticks" along with the Bustard. The first, Manx Shearwater, was seen on a boat trip in Cornwall. The Curlew Sandpiper and Bearded Tit were seen whilst visiting Rye Harbour last week, and the Chough (a Derbyshire tick), was seen on Monday.

Year List update:
184 – Manx Shearwater
185 – Curlew Sandpiper
186 - Bearded Tit
187 – Chough
188  - Little Bustard

Linacre Insects - 6th August 2019

Yesterday morning I went down to Linacre to do the final check of the nestboxes (more of that in another post), and afterwards spent another 3 hours walking around the site recording the insects (and a few birds!).

It was pretty sunny all the time I was there (up to 22 degrees by the time I left), and there were a good number of insects to see. First up the dragonflies and damselflies. The most numerous species, as always, was Common Blue Damselfly, with 20+ seen, including 2 mating pairs. Two male Blue-tailed Damselflies were also seen, along with 3 Southern Hawkers and 5 Brown Hawkers. 

Southern Hawker (immature male?)

Brown Hawker

Butterflies were also present in good numbers, including a new species for me at Linacre: Peacock 20, Ringlet 2, Large White 1, Small White 1, Green-veined White 4, Gatekeeper 6, Meadow Brown 7, Small Copper 1, Red Admiral 2, Comma 1, Painted Lady 5, Speckled Wood 1, Small Skipper 1, Narrow-bordered 5 spot Burnet moth (1 mating pair), Cinnabar Moth caterpillars, Shaded Broad Bar (1) and Wall Brown 1 female in the ringing site- my first record for Linacre!

Wall Brown

Hoverflies seen were: Volucella inanis (4), Volucella pellucens (2), Eristalis sp and Myathropa florea (1). Other insects were: Black and Yellow Longhorn Beetle (1), 6-spotted Ladybird (1), Tachinid flies,  Common Carder, White-tailed and Red-tailed Bumblebees, 

London Coots - 30th July 2019

Whilst in East Sussex last week, Jayne and I went up to London for the day to visit the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. After going there, we went for a walk around St James' Park, where, in amongst the "exotics", including a lovely female Hooded Merganser, we saw, and photographed, 10 darvic-ringed Coots.

Coot HHX

My nephew, Luke, has seen some of these before, so we knew that they'd been ringed by West London Birding. I sent details off, and heard back very quickly that 9 of the 10 birds had been ringed in St James' Park, between September 2016 and March 2019, with the exception of D67, who had been ringed in Regent's Park, 4km away. Not the most exciting movements, but interesting none the less, and, hopefully, as more data comes in the project will provide a good insight into these birds' lives.

Derbyshire Chough!!!!

News broke yesterday that a Chough had been discovered at Windgather Rocks on the Cheshire/Derbyshire border. This is the first ever record of this species for Derbyshire, so I had to pop across to see it.

The bird was present and "showing well" down to approximately 20m, as it fed on a sheep-grazed piece of land in Cheshire. Within a few minutes, the bird flew up and over me and the small group of admirers(!), and landed on the rocks behind us.... in Derbyshire!

Chough

It then flew back into Cheshire, and promptly disappeared over the hill! 15 minutes later it reappeared and landed back in the original field and fed for the next hour or so, before I left at 1pm. Here are a few photos.

RSPB Dungeness

Jayne and I had a trip around RSPB Dungeness on 1st August. We spent a couple of hours on the reserve, and saw some nice birds, insects and a couple of Harbour Porpoises.

Birdwise we saw, amongst others Dunlin, Lapwing, Common Tern, Little Egret and heard Bearded Tits.

Insects were in good numbers, and included Common Blue Damselfly, Emperor, Brown Hawker, Black-tailed Skimmer, Common and Ruddy Darter, Gatekeeper, Red Admiral and Painted Lady.

One of the Emperor dragonflies landed in a bush, and allowed some photos, as did a male Black-tailed Skimmer.

Emperor

Black-tailed Skimmer

After visiting the reserve, we had a walk down to the beach by the lighthouse, where we spotted a couple of Harbour Porpoises in the sea ( and a dead one on the beach) and several Herring Gulls on the beach.

Harbour Porpoise

Silver-spotted Skipper

Whilst researching places to visit in East Sussex, I noticed that there was a species of butterfly, the Silver-spotted Skipper, present on and around the South Downs. As it has a very restricted distribution in the UK, and we'd never seen this one before, Jayne and I decided to have a walk in the area around the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, to see if we could find it.

Beachy Head

We started our walk at the National Trust's Birling Gap car park, and walked up onto the Downs for a couple of miles to the Belle Tout Lighthouse (now a B and B) and Beachy Head.

Seven Sisters and Birling Gap

At the start of our walk, we spotted a couple of Small Skipper, and the first of dozens, if not hundreds, of Gatekeepers. As we continued up the cliffs we added Dark Green Fritillary (1), Chalkhill Blue and Meadow Brown to the list of butterflies seen, before finding the first Silver-spotted Skippers just below the Lighthouse.

Chalkhill Blue

As it was a lovely sunny day they were quite tricky to see, but we eventually managed to get a few photos.

Silver-spotted Skipper

Rye Harbour Nature Reserve

Jayne and I have had a week in East Sussex, staying in Rye Harbour. Whilst there, we had a couple of walks around the Sussex Wildlife Trust's Rye Harbour Nature Reserve.

Our first walk, with the ranger, on 27th July, saw us visit the shingle ridges and scrapes. We were introduced to a wide range of interesting flora, and also spent time looking at birdlife, including dozens of Dunlin, 1Knot, 2 Curlew Sandpiper, Redshank, Curlew and Whimbrel. There were also several Black-headed Gulls and Common Terns (adults and juveniles) still present. Whilst there, Jayne also spotted a small bee that turned out to be a Sharp-tailed Bee (Coelioxys conoidea).

Sharp-tailed Bee

We had a second walk around this morning, and this time we visited the Castle Water side of the reserve. This area is very different, consisting of large areas of reedbed, and deeper lakes. Here we saw: Mallards, Coots, Mute Swans, Greylag Geese, and then.....a juvenile Green Woodpecker, a Kingfisher (1), a Great White Egret and at least 2 juvenile Bearded Tits!!

Although it was quite overcast we also managed to see a few insects including Gatekeeper, Red Admiral, Painted Lady (1), Common Carpet (moth), Brown Hawker, Common Blue Damselfly, Small Red-eyed Damselfly, Volucella inanis (hoverfly), Common and Ruddy Darter.

Common Carpet

We also managed to spot 3 Marsh Frogs (a new species for us both), a non-native amphibian from Europe, that was introduced into Kent in 1935, and has set up feral populations in the south east.

Marsh frog