Thursday 28 May 2015

Something For the Weekend - Divine Comedy

With the May Bank Holiday now some days away, it has taken us this long to catch up with the 'hundreds' of photographs and notes that would put War and Peace in the shade. Our Regular (and valued) Readers will not be surprised to know that the whole period was given over to Wildlife and who better to share it with than my Wildlife Friend and Mentor
DAVE FOOT
and
GANDALF
With our collective 7 Moth Traps cleared we set off in search of
some Daytime Fliers, and didn't have to wait too long.
High on the agenda was
EMPEROR (Moth)
but the 'male' in particular.
Unlike the
'female',
this one you may remember was caught on the 12th of the month
and shown again for comparison, he is only on the wing during the day
so by definition will not entertain the 'light traps' so other
strategy is required to catch these extremely fast flying Insects.
Now, we have just mentioned 'fast flying', well compared to the above
 this 'Daytime Dasher'
BROAD-BORDERED BEE HAWK-MOTH
is the Usain Bolt of this division.
We chose to show the Best First so now back to just a selection of the
Saturday Night Catch.
In all, the Macro Totals registered
Dave = 132 Insects of 52 Species
Myself = 37 Species to 225 Individuals
among them New to the Property and New for the Year  
LIME HAWK-MOTH
EYED HAWK-MOTH
A particularly 'dark' (morph)
FOX MOTH
and if you can see it, the well camouflaged
PALE OAK BEAUTY
and also a 'dark morph' of the same.
IRON PROMINENT
MARBLED WHITE SPOT
SHEARS
TRUE LOVER'S KNOT
GREY BIRCH
and if you need any more evidence that
We Don't Do 'Micros'
Dave does!
also in one of the traps the first
CARDINAL BEETLE

of the year, and while looking every bit distinctive so far
we have only been able to narrow this down to a
LATRIDIIDAE SPECIES?
answers on a Post Card please.
The Insects eventually taken care of it was time for a stroll and to
see what else was on offer.
SAND MARTIN
appear to be thriving at the
recently discovered colony.
There are now thought to be 8 'active nests-holes'.
juvenile
PIED WAGTAIL
seem to be just about everywhere, while we caught this
WOOD PIGEON
napping.
Plants included
YELLOW FLAG IRIS
an excellent cluster of

RAGGED ROBIN
OXEYE DAISY
and extremely colourful
RED CAMPION
To continue the 'Young Bird' theme,
no less numerous
than the Pied Wagtail above
and seemingly willing to
show-off.
recently fledged
ROBIN
with a short 'clip'.
MUTE SWAN
introduced their Cygnets
to the world on
Parley Pond
5 counted so far, while
COOT
have only just started incubating.
There is a warning however, better keep the kids well away from
GIANT RED-EARED TERRAPIN

Coot eggs, yum, yum!
and a quick update on the
TAWNY OWLs
with the parent bird still in attendance

as shown
keeping close watch on the
OWLET
short clip before going 'off piste.
With half of Sunday afternoon still available it was unanimously agreed
that we wandered a little further afield.
TITCHFIELD HAVEN
was the destination and I was already wincing at the prospect of the
£4.00 Entrance Fee
to this Council Owned Nature Reserve.
You've paid yer Poll Tax now it's time to 'stump-up' some more!
We struck lucky as even before we found a FREE car park
Dave had already spotted the target bird and said he was happy to go back now!
The
GREATER YELLOWLEGS
a 'vagrant' from the Americas had conveniently flown to the
Estuary outside of the Reserve so was on
FREE VIEW
A 'World Lifer' for Dave and new for me in Great Britain.
Many 'hundreds' of these elegant Waders must have been seen on my various travels,
and though distant this was thought to be the Best of the Bunch plumage-wise!
So, not a bad week-end considering we hardly left Slight Return II.
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