Zero to Hero

 With Sunday night’s Zero temperature having rocketed to +16°C on Monday and certainly not hampered by 8 Oktas of cloud cover with little or no wind, surely this was going to be ‘The Night’? 

A little slow around the homestead before we set off but it's a seriously bad day if there is nothing at all to report with a fly over

RAVEN

seemingly carrying a Rat so its day also starting well.

Haveing decided to attend to the Heath traps firstly the usual stops were made en-route with 'music to the ear' coming from the now overgrown

Overspill Pit at the Irrigation Pond, the

WATER RAIL

was back at its Winter Quarters. Not to say that it has always been the same bird, but at least one has been doing so since 2015 but in all that time no more than a brief glimpse has been seen during those years. A secretive little bird with a 'piglet' like call / song.

The first Moth and contender for addition to the Year List wasn’t in the trap at all, only perched lethargically on the collar, while it doesn’t come a lot better than......

MERVEILLE du JOUR  

but more particularly when presented in tandem with a sharply contrasting,

caught on a number of occassions across the Autumn thus far,
BORDERED BEAUTY
Settling In,

it's a Heavy Load but somebodies got to do it, there was plenty else of interest.

Looking at the coming weather picture we might start crrying the umberella around with us!

GREEN-BRINDLED CRESCENT

was also added to the Year list

as was the rather similar

BRINDLED GREEN

bringing up the 370th species of Macro Moth for 2020. 

Otherwise

COSMOPOLITAN
was of interest as were 2 examples of  the variable

COMMON MARBLED CARPET

not remembering ever haveing seen the lower 'melanistic' example?

Away from the Moths a 

GIANT DIVING BEETLE 

was also caught and during the process we had a third day of tree tapper's with today's featuring

a hunting

GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER
Across the now almost completely

GOLDEN BROWN HEATH

dotted with the remnants of

HEATHER FLOWERS

and 

DWARF GORSE
there were very few Birds but what were about were unusual,

SKYLARK

was only the second to invade this air-space but breeds on the adjoining airfield, while

SONG THRUSH

is equally uncommon but plentiful elsewhere.

A welcome surprise involved what must have bee a couple of hundred

GOLDFINCH

to mobile and numerous to even think about counting while a nearby

WREN

wasn't hanging about to make a
Full Feature Film!

Finally, an absolute corker from Paul Harris in Weymouth

TIGER CRAHEFLY
never seen the likes of that before, what a beauty!