Meanwhile, this afternoon, I started with a visit at the Tree Nursery to look for Butterflies, it was warm and sunny, but again, a strong wing blew, I did find a few, with Large Skippers being the most abundant, but a pair of Common Blue and the first Brown Argus for the month were also seen. Birdwise it was very quiet, just a GREEN WOODPECKER, and the WHITETHROAT of note, the latter is feeding young, but I don't know if they are fledged young or not, I cant find any :-)
Next stop was the Lakes and Scrubby Woods, both the COOTS were seen on the ornamental lake, but no sign of them having hatched any young, two CANADA GEESE had 3 young with them though, just 2 MALLARDS and 3 MOORHEN made up the water life today.
In the Scrubby Woods, most of the noise was being made by the BLUE and GREAT TITS, but the odd CHIFFCHAFF and BLACKCAP gave a little bit of song, a family of LONG TAILED TITS moved through the trees, and with them were the first family of NUTHATCH'S, at least two recently fledged young were seen, good to have them on the years breeding list.
I sat down and had a look over three Oak trees that have held the Purple Hairstreaks in previous years, and after a bit of a wait I found one! It flew purposely along the trees and disappeared, hopefully I'll get a photo of one soon! Also whilst sitting and waiting, I saw a Four Spotted Chaser, only the second this year, as I've said before these are seldom seen on my patch, so it was good to get a photo of it, even if I did get stung and scratched to get it!!
On leaving, I walked the footpath to the Wet Woods, which is flanked by two Large Gardens, one lawned and manicured, thus empty, the other is well wooded and was home to another, or the same party of Long Tailed tits seen earlier, probably was the same as two Nuthatch's were calling with them, as well as many unseen Blue and Great Tit youngsters, at one point the whole flock went into alarm mode, and was joined by a JAY and BLACKBIRD, they had obviously found a predator of sorts, maybe an Owl species, but I couldn't see anything from my viewpoint.
Just as I was entering Ashes Lane from the footpath, I heard another of the four species mentioned yesterday, a YELLOWHAMMER (59) it was good to hear it singing not far from where I saw one at the end of May, maybe i'll get just one pair breeding on my patch this year :-)
I took the following photo's this afternoon, first up is one of the adult Long Tailed Tits, it was almost asleep on the branch, it looked exhausted, not surprising with all those young to feed!
Below is the Four Spotted Chaser, click on the photo to enlarge it, I think it looks better.
Below is another White Legged Damselfly
Above is a Common Blue Butterfly, and below one of the many LargeSkippers that are about now.
5 comments:
Large Skipper was the most numerous flutter on my patch today as well, Warren. Failed to get a shot of any though. Just too flighty in this scorching weather.
It was hot today Dean :-) Luckily the wind had a cooling effect!
Nice shots, I have only seen one Large Skipper this year but apparently the earliest Kent record.
Looking at that hard-working Long Tailed Tit I realise I must quit complaining about being tired!
The White-legged damselfly is a ghostly looking species - I haven't seen one of those yet.
That LTT did look done in, poor thing! Oh well, I expect it will be spick and span again later in the Summer. The parent birds really do work hard.
You're right the Four Spotted Chaser looks really beautiful when enlarged!!
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