Hummingbird B.B. King / Les Paul

 With yet another +6°C on the temperature gauge it was still more about frustration than reality that we flashed up the Moth Traps again on Wednesday night. Thursday dawned as though it were mid-Spring rather than mid-Winter and stayed that way all day, with a 'blank' from the traps, but the effort seemed worth it when we heard from our friend John Gifford in Weymouth, that he had recorded a

HUMMINGBIRD HAWK-MOTH

in his garden

which is one of the few 'day-time flying' macro Moths.
"like the man said, you ain't going to catch owt if you don't flash the traps up"

At full daylight with frost still deep and crisp and even nipping the finger-tips, there came just a moment of magic with none avian fliers we have been hoping to capture for a couple of weeks or more since the newly liveried

DRAKEN EUROPE
trainer jets took over from the previous

COBHAMs
which we feel are the same aircraft as the company were taken over recently.

WOOD PIGEON
in the first rays of the Sun and then a thin veneer of ice now almost covering the surface of the

with not a Waterfowl to be seen which looked to have moved to the more open waters of the

TUFTED DUCK
a male was thought to be a new arrival

making an acquanitance with the
Little Grebes and other residents as well

but keeping more than a wings-length from the

hunting

GREY HERON

which will take a pop at just about anything while both

MOORHEN and COOT
remain resident.
Knowing 3 regular breeding sites across the Recording Area for the deminutive

Tree Mouse

more correctly the

TREECREEPER
it was thought, as usual, just a matter of time before it too joined the ranks of
First's for the Year.

Still a couple of

EGYPTIAN GEESE

along the course of the

MOORS RIVER
but seemingly gone, or in hiding, we have seen nothing of the Canada's lately.
It feels like we could do with a not to distant away-day which we will further consider over the   Week End - Av a Gudun'