Dry County - Bon Jovi Saturday

In my humble opinion BJ's 'finest hour', quite opposed to our tale of woe,
but flies right in the face of last night's (predicted) weather of
heavy and persistant rain, winds touching gale force as enough reason to leave the
Moth Trap Switch in the OFF position!

British Telecom 

had issued advice that works were to take place across our area on Wednesday, but who could have envisaged they would be up the telegraph poles before 07:00? That was just one reason why you were denied a Post on Thursday but in addition there were grumbles coming from the usually 100% reliable laptop. Not at all adept at these 'on line' searches my luck was in as finding Darran who not only lives a couple of miles away, but is also mobile and in short time was knocking the door. Prognosis? " Yer need a new hard-drive guv", which was right beyond my ken! Anyroad, he said he would have it fix by that afternoon - which he duly did!

The similarity between Bon Jovi's superb track and our home county Dorset

is that they are both 'DRY', theirs of Oil and ours of Wildlife 
but persist and you'll surely find something.

Across the border they turn water into wine
some say it's the devil's blood
they're squeezing from the vine
Some say it's a saviour
in these hard and desperate times
you see it helps me to forget that we're just born to die!

 Again a very poor show from the Moth Trap with the best not being a Moth at all

 but an acrobatic

 and very lively

 HORNET

With the Irrigation Pond also drying out, the water is used to keep dust levels down in the Eco works, we have been predicting and hoping for a Wader of sorts.
That wish being a command this morning found a

 COMMON SANDPIPER
not only finding sustenance

but also

a place to preen

on the now expossed gravel.

Meanwhile, at the other pond we had time to catch up with the single remaining juvenile

 COOT

preening but still being tended by both parent birds but growing rapidly.

female

and juv swimming.

I came here like so many did to find a better life
to find my piece of easy street to finally be alive
And I know nothing good comes easy
all good things take some time
I made my bed I'll lie in it to die in it's the crime

 At the same watercourse again just a 'single' juvenile

 MOORHEN

 which, apart from Canada Geese, brings up the sum total of
Waterfowl procreation here this year, numbers across the board, usually amount to 

15 to 25 Chicks!

Not exactly a bonanza and from there it slowly dwindled downhill with just a single

 MEADOW PIPIT
allowing forjust a short

bit of footage

 plus another

AIRBUS

of the European Cargo Kind!

Ever looking foreward to a brighter tomorrow and hope

you will be back here to join us!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB3Yi0UPRRU

You can't help but prosper
where the streets are paved with gold
They say the oil wells ran deeper here than anybody's known
Now I packed up on my wife and kid
and left them both back at home
See there's nothing in this pay dirt
the ghosts are all I know

Now the oil's gone and the money's gone
All the job's are gone
still we're hanging on down in…..…

If that don't do it for you it's impossible to tell what will - "anybody got a tissue"??

PS - Richie Sambora holds a place on my Top Ten Lead Guitarists Ever! 

Highly Suspect - Chicago

The only Good News is that we have now caught up with the back-log

while the Bad amounts to less and less to report!
Maybe just as bad, the moment we decided to publish some suggestions the
Internet Dropped Out!
Now, there is an expression in the Royal Navy for such events
but not for tender viewers!!

However, once again the Sunset Sky gave a great account of itself 
as we came to the end of our evening's perambulation putting us in good sorts
for a decent size tot of Port before swinging into the hammock.
Again, there could have been a grumble about the number of Moths in the Traps
but after securing yet another 3 additions to the 2020 List who's complaining?

 SUSPECTED

 along with the other 2 species are annual

 BORDERED PUG

 along with a

DELICATE

All else came from 
Bournemouth International Airport
from where it would seem the

 British Airways Exodus 
is at least part underway,

 leaving great patches of blank and empty airfield

but every action being countered by a reaction saw an

NHS AIRBUS
coming in to land after yet another trip to and from 
China.
In truth we were but a few seconds late of capturing the 
'wheels touching the tarmac'
but did get the permitted 20 second clip of her heading for the pan!

Even before the blades on the engine came to a stop the

Cargo Handlers
were scrambled and quickly set to work.
Assuming we are able to publish this post, we will field an explaination why we were
A.F.O.P.O.D.
"absent from our place of duty"
yesterday - yet another tale of woe!
As will have been seen, there is a 'new glow' about the Post this morning
as we 'break-in' the new hard-drive here's hopeng there will be no more snags,
and thanks for your patience!

Of Cabbages and Kings

A fickle female is Mother Nature as one minute it's feast quickly followed by famine as has proved the case over the last couple of days. Comparing Sunday morning’s counts from the moth traps with the previous bonanza of Thursday things were miles apart but may also have something to do with that dogged westerly breeze? Likewise, the remainder of the outside world also proved to be unproductive but will leave the moaning and groaning at that!

 A far better picture than the last as again we entered

Sunset Strip

 Apart from the rather robust

 CABBAGE MOTH

yesterday's additions to the 2020 List were all of a more delicate nature

 OAK HOOK-TIP

SMALL SCALLOP

 

 SCALLOP SHELL

and

DINGY SHELL

Getting out at 05:15 in an effort to dodge the predicted rain at 06:00 had the desired effect,

but as the forecasters were right again the Moths were all that were found during daylight hours.

Fortunately that some residue remained from the previous day

giving us at least half a chance of a Post!

Mostly from the Heath and in no particular order

 and last evenings exit of many dozens of Gull heading for a roost at sea?

COMMON BIRD'S-FOOT TREFOIL 

in oppose to

GREATER BIRD'S-FOOT TREFOIL

 BROWN HEATH ROBBERFLY

There are c3 species of Heather (Erica) here with this

 CROSS-LEAVED HEATH

being one, the others,

Dorset Heath or Bell Heather

we hope to bring you in the near future.

Yet another small gathering of

 STARLINGsg

but still no signs of our Rosy bird?

 A species of

COTTON GRASS

(maybe Hare's)

 Just so we could include on Bird

WOOD PIGEON

 MULLEIN

 RED-LEGGED SHIELDBUG

 SCARLET PIMPERNEL

 RED DARTER

Forming a Love Heart!

We thank John Gifford for some of the ID's!

Bits and Pieces - Dave Clark 5

Winnie the Pooh Weather

continued for yet another day as the 'blustery' winds kept most things wild at bay!

Even before getting into the rig-of-the-day a

 GREY HERON

(juvenile by the looks of it)

was already surveying the main pond.

It was by just by old fashion 'good luck' and no judgement at all that across the

Moth Traps

we found one rather expected moth and one that hadn't even regisered on the radar yet,

the former of the 2 being a

 YELLOW-TAIL

along with what the book describes as a

"rather large and rare"

 DENTATED PUG

maybe needless to say a first for the year.

The bonus came when also plucked from one of the traps was a

SOUTHERN HAWKER DRAGONFLY

holding on doggedly to an egg tray while the

LARGE UMBERELLA

donated by the Water Bailiff has proved most useful while monitoring the traps.

 Apart from the wind not helping matters during the process also the

RARE BREEDS CATTLE

also decided to take a wander thhrough the pitch but with a little

gentle persuasion they were soon munching away elsewhere.

 It was also noted to be 'low tide' at the 

IRRIGATION POND

which in days gone by was once used to water the many acres of turf production,

the area now given over to Solar Panel.

In this state it can be attractive to the odd Wading bird but as the water is now used to

keep the dust down in the Eco Works it will surely soon be topped up again manually.

On the Heath our first encounter was also our first sighting of a juvenile

 ROBIN

thereabouts

even though adults are numerous

and its nice to have a couple of clips where it is not me doing the shaking for a change!

We were a little tight for time on Sunday so the

Turning of the Reptile Covers

was held over until today which so far has also been fairly slow.

No great revelations but we did log a couple of

 

 

 SMOOTH SNAKES

between a

 

 

FLYING ANT COLONY

 and a

 BROWN-LIPPED SNAIL

and as it doesn't last for long here are a trio of clips

 showing just how confiding juvenile

STONECHATS

can be.

and finally this beauty is in fact 2 trees, an

OAK to the left and the other a BEECH

that are admired every single day, but with the wind in their hair it presents a

Whole Different Picture

We hope to be here again tomorrow - thanks for dropping by!