"Rosie" - Don Partridge Part One

We have always endeavoured to relate our headline, and by definition the accompanying Post, to a musical theme with today's and tomorrow's efforts fitting as near perfectly as ever published before.

Any day that starts with the Wildlife coming to you makes it ROSY in the first place,

but when that happens before you even swing out of the hammock, then things get that little more ROSINE!
with this tiny critter having fallen out of the Star Tunnel Skylight and onto my face. One thing about having a passion for Insects, et al, you usually have a specimen pot handy - thus was the case.
While that came close to rosy even before dawn the first

CETTI'S WARBLER
to grace our beat of the Stour was descanting with an also welcome

SEDGE WARBLER
while the Cherry on the cake was surely the first Insect from the Moth Traps

which might be described as 'scarce' but may even qualify as 'rare' a
BUTTONED SNOUT

while also of value as another First for the Year a
WORMWOOD PUG
and also of acrobatic value another

PUSS MOTH

firstly showing its starboard side and then this stern view.

Arriving at 18-Acre down south we found the stubble field had been tilled, a huge bonus as we are now more likely to see Ground Nesting Birds, should they arrive and no sooner had that thought cleared our head out popped c2

RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE
not recorded in these parts for at least a year and bringing with it memories of the
first, last and only

GREY PARTRIDGE
ever personally seen here as far back as 31/12/2013.
At the Satellite section of the heath the new arrival

SUSSEX RED CATTLE

were performing the best they have since arrival with the calf 'suckling'

and the other Cow

Contentedly Chewing the Cud.
After our previous manifestation it was almost impossible to believe we had also just seen c2 more Red-Legged Partiridge
take to the wing, never having been recorded in this area before.
Not a lot to report from within the Main Solar Panel compound, for this half of the story at least, but

there was some value while at close quarters watching this
LINNET

feathering its own nest

and a most

confiding

GREENFINCH
just strutting its stuff, while the more astute may have surmised that there was yet another, quite different pair of

RED-LEGS
to end this part of the saga - part 2 manana!

Edith Piaf - The Little Sparrow

 It would be safe to say that most of the days action took place in the southern half of the Recording Area, but not quite all! c2 new species of Moth added to the Year List, by way of,

PALE TUSSOCK

and an

Equally Fine Specimen of

DOG'S TOOTH
while the local

PIED WAGTAIL
(bill full of victuals)

is once again nesting and feeding young

at the traditional nest site behind the farmhouse
Solar Panels.

Next, and far more worrying, it was found that neither

MUTE SWAN
appeared to be incubating (but had certainly added some more 'stout' material to the nest)
so took the opertunity to visit the Island, known as

but on the way found no few than

c4

Mute Swan

egg shells

strewn across the area while our observation of the nest

showed what looked like just

c2 of the previous count of 7

eggs within?

Next was to catch up on the

MALLARD DUCKLINGs
which seemed ship-shape and Bristol fashion, but next something most unexpected.

Absent, or more likely Hiding for a number of days now there, 'running' across the paddock was our ol' mate the male

MANDARIN

(Welcome Back)

While all from up North

came c2 half decent 'stills'

along with a

quarter of a dozen rather poor

videos and finally another most heartening shot, doing the rounds, of unfledged

TREE SPARROWs
from the Somerset Project which amounts to 'hundreds'.
By comparison we have recorded but a 'single' in our close to 10 years at this site and thought to be extinct as a breeding species across our home county, Dorset?

"Rosie" - Don Partridge (Part II)

Another Brain Storm on yesterday's Post the plant is HERB Robert not Lord Robert!

 Just as a reminder as to the end of yesterday's Post

where we had clocked up our 3rd pair, an unpresedented c6 individuals in a single day, we continue as ever at the Moth Traps.

Those done, we took more than a cursory look across the

Late Bronze Age Tumili

in the Main Solar Panel Compound to establish if there is any activity there

which looks promising so worthy of a
Dusk Vigil. Little, or maybe that should read 'nothing' across the first circuit until reaching the 'hard standing' again, and would you Adam and Eve it

what surely must have been yet another, quite seperate, further c2

RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE
while remembering this is part 2 of the same day we sped off to check that the former pair were still there, which was the case, bringing the complete day tally to c8 individuals!

All else within

was at first

a jaunty male

WHEATEAR

joined in due course

and maybe predictably by an

equally smart

female

unusually

only our 'second' such pair of the year, while a 'lucky snap' found the

male in company briefly with a male
STONECHAT
all else were these wayside blooms

on our way home a clump of

COLUMBINE oy GRANNY'S BONNET if you will.