Out On The Winding Windy Moor - Wuthering Heights

Another day of changeable weather looked every bit as if rain could be a feature, but for the best part it stayed off. Once again the 'truck' was at my disposal so to take full advantage I headed for the Poole Basin, first stop being Upton Country Park. The few birds on offer threw up Robin, well into double figures, Blackcap trying to catch up with them, lots of Shelduck and Gulls otherwise

 CURLEW
which was a Dorset Year Tick,

 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL
a Day Tick (no, don't worry we're not going there)

 a fairly long awaited Year Bird in the shape of

 LITTLE EGRET
 
 and a few WIGEON (male)
 
 (female) also a County addition.

 Driving down Nutcrack Lane this field of fine looking
SHIRE(type) HORSES
were fantastic value as the stop also produced c2

 RAVENs

flying overhead.

 Continuing on to
HARTLAND MOOR

apart from a pair of Blackbird with fledged young there was nothing else of interest so onward to

MIDDLEBERE where things were marginally better.

 The c2 OYSTERCATCHERs on the exposed mud
 
 soon turned into c2 dozen which also increased the Dorset tally,

while an all to distant

YELLOW-LEGGED GULL

was an addition to both lists.

All else of note was the beauty of the flowering
GORSE.
Some of today's images are from the archive.
and finally, if like me you thought yesterday's image by
Paul Harris
was 'off the scale' then try this for size!

 SCARCE SWALLOWTAIL
 As the name suggests must rarer than its close relative which
is 'resident' in Great Britain, the stronghold being East Anglia.

On the other hand this species is believed to be an extremely rare natural immigrant to our shores. However, the dozen or so sightings could be the result of immature stages being accidentally imported, or releases of captive-bred stock. This species was figured as a British species as early as 1710. The first authoritative reports of a capture were from Clapham Park Wood, Bedfordshire, in 1803 and from Netley, Shropshire in 1822.