Saturday 27 June 2015

From 06:30 this morning it was tee shirt weather, summer arrives at last!

The fine, warm weather didn't bring me any new species for the June list though, nor did I find any different newly fledged young, the KESTREL and WHITETHROATS at the Greenhouse Grounds must be on the verge of doing so, but I said that a few days ago  :-)

Here's more of the young Kestrels in their box, they have moved on a bit even since the last images I took a few days ago!


Ready to go?




The highlight of the rather mundane visit was another flyover from the PEREGRINE, it flew high over Migrant Alley, as I watched it, I picked up another 3 BLACK HEADED GULLS higher up, only the second record of this species for June. A GREY HERON, a BUZZARD and 4 HERRING GULLS were the only other noteworthy flyovers today.

Nuthatch and Treecreeper evaded detection today, but GOLDCREST, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, BULLFINCH, CHIFFCHAFF, BLACKCAP, SONGTHRUSH, STOCK DOVE, GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS were all easily found in the Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods, along with all the more common stuff  :-) This still only gave me a total of 41 species for the day, a little bit on the low side for a 5 hour full patch walk.

I put in a bit of time looking for Dragons, Damsels and Butterflies, of the latter, I added Comma to the June list and of the Dragons, I saw a Brown Hawker, new here for the year, but Damsels were few, with just a dozen White-legged, about the same number of Azures and 4 Blue Tailed, one of which was a fading Rufescens form female, these were also new for the year here, bringing the 2015 Odonata list to 17 species  :-)


Comma Butterfly, clearly showing it's white 'comma' mark  :-)


White-legged Damselfly - Male


White-legged Damselfly - Male


Blue-tailed Damselfly - normal female



Blue-tailed Damselfly - Female Rufescens Form


8 comments:

Greenie said...

Warren ,
Not just any Comma , but a form 'hutchinsoni' , with golden brown undersides ,
produced by early Spring caterpillars .
The later specimens have the darker , almost black undersides .
Well spotted !

Warren Baker said...

Ah yes Greenie......er.....just what I thought it was LoL :-)

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Had 1st brown hawker of the year today - flew over the car in Lidl car park in the town centre - only slightly out of habitat

Cracking pics, lovin the young kestrels

Cheers

DaveyMan

Marc Heath said...

Nice odo set today Warren. Still awaiting my first Brown Hawker of the year.

Warren Baker said...

Davyman,
Hopefully a lot more firsts this week as the weather warms up :-)

Warren Baker said...

Anyday now Marc, :-)

Johnnykinson said...

The Kestrels have narf comne on !!!

Wilma said...

That comma is a lovely specimen! Amazing how much the young kestrels have matured. And not least - great selection of damsels.