Thorn in My Side - Eurythmics

While daytimes have continued to be sunny and warm over the last few days, with temperatures holding at low double figures we are using our own theory reference the Moths. In such conditions ‘cocoons’ must be splitting open in droves during the day and temperatures not dropping until midnight, it seems well worth flashing up all steaming lights, even if only for those first few hours of darkness! To emphasise the point we did catch repeats of

PURPLE THORN

BRINDLED PUG

EARLY GREY

plus an
 ICHNEUMON WASP

but with Pride of Place falling fairly and squarely with a 'first for year'

EARLY THORN

our 38th such of the period thus far among 27 Moths of 12 Species.

While neither the 'still' or the

'video clip' indicating as much there must have been a minimume of 100 mixed Gull on the newly harrowed and likely seeded 18-Acre not a single one provided us with a full frame shot.
Leaning on the archive as a substitute and illustration they were in turn

HERRING GULL

BLACK-HEADED GULL

but more importantly and welcome were numerous

MEDITERRANEAN GULLs

which have been seen and heard overhead on a number of occassions during the year
but always a welcome sight on the ground.
Reverting to Botony en-route to the Heath we found clumps of

CHERRY LAUREL

in bud

and as if having appeared overnight a carpet of the minute

MOSSY STONECROP
(thanks John)
along with

LADY'S SMOCK
We didn't have to wait long for our expected and predicted

'male'

WHEATEARs

to show up

with c3 absolute 'peaches'

which may have stollen all the thunde for themselves had it not been for the

appearance of something of a 'rarity' to the Heath a

PIED WAGTAIL
which are so infrequent we didn't even need to remove the other hand from the pocket
to calculate previous number sightings here!
Another

SLOW WORM
along with another active

ANTs NEST
were welcome finds while finally a male

LINNET
was captued feathering his own nest to the accompaniment of a
Willow Warbler

while maybe his BELLE was sprucing up for the upcoming nuptials?