Sunday 5 July 2015

Only a little over an hour was spent out this morning, as by 08:00hrs a period of moderately heavy rain moved in, at least it's filled my ponds and watered the garden properly!

Not much was seen in the time available, a walk around the paddocks and sheep pasture at Migrant Alley was much the same as yesterday, right down to the 6 GREYLAG GEESE !  I looked for, but didn't find, the fledged WHITETHROATS at the Greenhouse Grounds, but did see a female LINNET carrying nesting material into a scrubby area, the male bird watched on, I hope they have time to raise a family before farmer Giles annihilates the scrubb! The KESTREL family were up and about in the general area, plus flyovers from 2 GREY HERONS, 4 HERRING GULLS,  and singles of LESSER BLACK BACKED and BLACK HEADED GULL were seen. A SKYLARK sang from very high up, as I searched for it I began to pick out many SWIFTS, at least 20 were feeding on the wing.

A short afternoon visit was made, this time I walked the Ashes Lane Fields, but nothing bird wise was noteworthy, I spent most of the time photographing insects!


I was looking for an Essex Skipper, maybe this is one ? I'm never sure!


There were just one or two of these Common Blue Damselflies about


plus half a dozen White-legged Damselflies, mostly females.


White-legged Damselfly

6 comments:

Pete Woodruff said...

Pity the rain put paid to your mornings programme, but good you got out again later.

I was off to see a White-winged Black Tern at Leighton Moss RSPB Reserve but put the plan on hold when some pretty miserable misty but heavy rain came down....it's still on hold four hours later and probably by now called off.

Obviously can't help with the skipper Warren....well you know how good I am at these things!!

Marc Heath said...

Looks quite good for Essex. Any with wings open as if its a male the shorter sex brand on wing will be visable.

Warren Baker said...

I tried to get one of the sex brand Marc, but it was too lively, and off it went!

Warren Baker said...

I wish you luck on the WWBT Pete, maybe it will hang about for you!

Greenie said...

Warren ,
My money is on Small Skipper .
The colouring of underside of their antennae can be anything from orange to dull brown , as can be seen on your header .
A good adage is , if you only think it might be an Essex , it's probably a Small .
When you see an Essex , you know it's an Essex , with the ends if it's antennae appearing to have been dipped in Indian black ink .

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Greenie,
I'll put down as a Small Skipper :-)