At last I have got a full patch walk done! Early in the morning there was some welcome sunshine, but a strong breeze still blew, the remnants of yesterdays Storm. The wind made it difficult to hear much singing, and harder still to hear any calls of recently fledged young, but I did manage to add HOUSE SPARROW to the Successfully confirmed breeding list when a single fledgling was seen at the College Stables, it was here that I also added a
LESSER WHITETHROAT (
61) to the June list, its song did carry over the wind :-)
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| A windy day! This SONGTHRUSH at the College Grounds was having a bad feather day in the breeze :-) | | | | | |
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The daylist only reached a miserly 39 species, due mainly to not being able to hear over the wind, but it was good just to get out and see some of the common birds, like the SWALLOWS and SWIFTS that were feeding over Migrant Alley, the WHITETHROATS taking food to its nest site at the Tree Nursery, and plenty of BLACKCAPS and CHIFFCHAFFS over in the Scrubby Woods. A GREY HERON was fishing at the lakes, where the feral BARNACLE GOOSE and its CANADA GOOSE partner were resting up, I also checked up on the COOT family which are doing well :-)
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| Immature PIED WAGTAIL at the College Stable yard |
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| WREN in the tall hedge which divides the Greenhouse Complex and Migrant Alley |
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| A LINNET pair on the fence along Ashes Lane |
The KESTREL was up hunting, and was the only raptor seen today, while flyovers were practically none existent, with just a few HERRING GULLS.
This afternoon I had an hour to spare, so I checked the Tree Nursery for butterflies, I didn't expect much but was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of Brown Argus, and a mating pair of Common Blues. Whilst slowly walking the grassland between the shrub rows, I came across a Bee Orchid, then another, and yet another still, nine plants in all, lovely little things, unfortunately their future looks bleak, as the field will be sprayed, cleared, and ploughed at some point this year :-(
Lots of photo's today - to make up for yesterday :-)
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| Brown Argus - not looking too bad considering the poor weather of late! |
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| Brown Argus |
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| Mating Common Blue Butterflies |
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| Mating Common Blue Butterflies |
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| Bee Orchid |
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| Bee Orchid |
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| Bee Orchid |
6 comments:
Snap, with the orchids Warren...well sort of :-) I do like Bee Orchids, they really do look like there is a bee on the flower, beautiful and so are your photos!
I love the juvenile Wagtail :-) and the wind blown thrush looks very...wind blown!
Butterflies!, it's not still Winter after all then. It looks like your weather has been better today than ours. Of course, it's brightening up now it's too late.
Thanks for the gull info. I thought that would be the logical explanation. Does that mean then that there is very little difference between 1st Winter and 1st Summer plumage?
Lovely Butterfly shots, like the Orchid, looks really good.
Hi Songbird,
There is not much difference between a first winter and 1st summer Common Gull, a frst winter is maybe a bit less grey on the back with darker wing. Not worth splitteing hairs :-) They are Immature Gulls - thats the best way to deal with them!
Thanks Warren :-)
What a super selection of photos Warren. I especially like the mating Common Blue, Brown Argus and the Song Thrush.Ive noticed Bee Orchids making an appearance on the blogs recently,willhave to lookout for them myself.
Thanks for pointing me in the direction of Greenie, it was interesting to read of his experiences with trying to identify Small Coppers.
Warren ,
It was nice to see the sun , but still hard work out there in the windy conditions .
With more rain this week , I'm beginning to think we can forget butterflies this year . With some species almost finished , what is next year going to be like ?
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