Friday 11 December 2020

Johnny the Fox - Thin Lizzy

 As the Weather Forecaster so rightly predicted there was a balmy +8°C persisting throughout the night, full cloud cover and on the down-side quiet a lot of rain. Luckily they made something of a blunder with the latter which amounted to very little at all but still every reason to get all of the Moth Traps fired up! Staring through the perspex collar of the first brought on a feeling of contentment as

YELLOW-LINE QUAKER

finalised our urge to catch at least one Macro Moth during each month of the year, but it didn't end there. Among the collective was also a single

DARK CHESTNUT
c2 PINE CARPET
c4 DECEMBER MOTHs
and a
RED-LINE QUAKER
Don't know the season for such things as
STRIPED MILLEPED
but it felt like it shouldn't have been there but most welcome as  both
MINOTAUR BEETLE
and
 DOR BEETLE

were quite expected but it has been a full 9 days since we have caught anything at all.
Bit of a shift around of the Wildfowl on both ponds as a pair of

TUFTED DUCK
seem to have displaced the previous female on the Irrigation Pond, which we rather like to think was the the one now gracing the
Gravel Pit
while a 'spring' of 20+ flighty Teal still remain there.
As far as avians on the Heath were concerned it amounted to no more than a single each of a
KESTREL
in flight
and a
feeding and vocal
GREEN WOODPECKER
No more than a whim took us back to the
Gravel Pit
where a
GREEN SANDPIPER
had moved in but far more likely to have been overlooked in the first instance.
Back to base and another
BROWN RAT
this one far more lively than the dead one of yesterday
 likely getting more bold finding food as the weather cools?
and finally, maybe the unseen yapping
FOX
of yesterday as well - satisfaction all round!