Monday July 31

I haven't really done anything since my last post, other than look out of the kitchen window.

Our feeders were deluged in birds on Saturday. Its very difficult to assess the numbers when birds are visiting regularly, but my best estimate would be 12 Long-tailed Tits, 12 Blue Tits, six Great Tits, two Coal Tits, three Robins, a Dunnock, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Bullfinch, a Song Thrush, three Blackbirds, a Wren, a Goldfinch, and five House Sparrows.

I fear for the last of these because we finally bit the bullet and arranged for our guttering and fascia to be replaced. Some of the wood was rotting due, it seems, to errors made by some guys carrying out loft insulation about ten years ago. My worry is that the House Sparrows will not like the change and may not breed next year. We'll see.

Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker

Juvenile Song Thrush

The last House Sparrows ?

Juvenile Robins

Finally, on Sunday afternoon a "small orange butterfly" which Lyn had been seeing (and which I had been assuring her would be a Comma) landed on the Scabious and was actually a Gatekeeper.

Gatekeeper

Too cool for moths though.

But hold the front page: Just squeaking into July was a Brimstone Moth caught tonight in the bathroom.

Brimstone Moth

Its that rare thing, a pretty moth. They turn up every year in our garden though.

Thursday July 27

The walk to the paper shop this morning produced a terrific new bird for the year. A Hobby flew across the road just beyond the shop.

Wednesday July 26

Four more moths last night, two of them new for the year, and all of them micros.

I was up early photographing the two new ones before the rain arrived. Both were familiar from previous years. First was the giant micro, Mother of Pearl.

Mother of Pearl

The second was a male Light Brown Apple Moth.

Light Brown Apple Moth (male)

Left to their fate in the bathroom due to a shortage of pots were a Twenty-plume Moth and a Crambus sp which may have been Crambus pascuella.

Tuesday July 25

Last night was exceptional for beasts. I hadn't expected anything, to the extent that I only opened the bathroom window as an afterthought.

At 11.30pm the first beast made itself known, and it was a bird! A Tawny Owl was audible from the landing, so I shot outside and quickly located a large blob on the TV aerial across the street. The blob resumed its prolonged quivering yawl, not really a hoot. I had been half expecting the noise to be coming from a cat. Through my bins I was in time to see the owl take off and fly away over the roofs. We have heard Tawny Owl from the house before, but only a couple of times in the last 13 years, so it was definitely a bit of a coup.

Back indoors the bathroom was starting to fill up with moths. This is a slight exaggeration, but given that I still possess only two perspex pots I was going to have to be discriminating. A fruit-tree tortrix was rejected, then another one, before I spotted a little grass-veneer which looked different. I potted it. Then a medium sized macro turned up. It gained a place in the other pot. Next to appear was another biggish macro, but I could see it was a Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, so I was able to ignore it. On the landing a pug sp had appeared. It looked interesting enough to warrant a photograph, but was later identified as a rather bright Double-striped Pug.

Later in the night a second visit caused a large geometer to arrive. I was fairly sure it was a Willow Beauty, so reluctantly released the grass-veneer in favour of the sexier beast. As luck would have it I was able to recapture the smaller moth in the morning after photographing the two macros.

So what did I get?

The first one turned out to be another one with the caveat that certain identification was not always possible without examining the genitalia. Bloody moths. Nevertheless I am pretty certain that the moth in question was a species called The Uncertain. The problem being the closely similar Rustic (not the Common Rustic which is a different species altogether).

The Uncertain Hoplodrina alsines

The geometer was, as I had suspected, a Willow Beauty.

Willow Beauty Peritabodes rhomboidaria

It's feathered antennae showed it to be a male.

Finally, by conveniently resting on the window frame, the grass-veneer was potted and I identified it as Agriphila straminella.

Agriphila straminella

Finally, the morning was to produce one more surprise, this time a bird. As I drove along Alders Drive a Kestrel flew across the road at the island. A somewhat overdue year-tick.

Monday July 24

Most of the action recorded in this blog occurred on Sunday. Overnight I caught a couple of moths. One was another Blastobasis adustella, but the second was a macro-moth which I thought would be straightforward to identify. Today I realise it is actually not identifiable to species without an examination of its genitalia.

Common Rustic ag Mesapamea sp

The problem is that Common Rustic is vary variable, as is Lesser Common Rustic, and a species called Remm's Rustic, which the book I use doesn't even illustrate and which may not actually be a species at all.

Easier species included two Peacocks, three Red Admirals, a Comma, and a Holly Blue which all appeared in the garden yesterday. Also the local Robin has brought its surviving fledgling to the garden.

Peacock

Just fledged

Last night two small macros turned up. One was instantly identifiable as a Straw Dot, so I released it. The second was a pug sp, but I have now decided it is a dull example of Double-striped Pug.

Double-striped Pug

Friday 21 July

Yesterday was a bit of a disappointment. I had a couple of pre-work hours in the morning and had planned to use them looking for dragonflies at Ipsley Alders. That was before I woke up to the sound of heavy rain. By 09.00 am it was showing signs of abating, but it was cloudy and cool, so my only option appeared to be a circumnavigation of Arrow Valley Lake looking for birds.

This did produce one interesting sighting, but it wasn't a bird. It was a mammal. A Weasel bounced across the path carrying prey of some sort. Unfortunately I only had time for a quick look through the binoculars to rule out Stoat, and then it was gone.

The birds consisted of about 150 geese (Canadas and Greylags), and smaller numbers of moulting Mallard and Great Crested Grebes. The pair of Oystercatchers was still present.

The rain pepped up and I gave up.

The moth activity has also been a bit slow, just repeat appearances of single Silver Y, Large Yellow Underwing, Holly Tortrix, and Blastobasis adustella.

Finally, Lyn now has the record for Long-tailed Tits on the feeder, with an impressive seven. I'm trailing in a poor second with these five.

Wednesday July 19

In an earlier post I showed a photograph of a bee I thought was Willoughby's Leaf-cutter Bee. I also submitted the photograph to irecords where it was assessed by a bee expert as "plausible". Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I like to think it simply meant that the photograph didn't show enough for full acceptance.

At the time there was no evidence of the activity in the garden, but yesterday I discovered this:

Holes blocked by leaf-plugs

Clearly there is a species of leaf-cutter bee in the garden. Bees scare me, not because of the sting, but because the species are numerous and many are very similar to one another. However, I will try to see, and perhaps photograph, the comb on the underside of their bodies which can be very useful in sorting out the leaf-cutters.

Just two moths last night, both micros, and both tricky.

One was a tortrix which I believe to be Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix, while the other was a stronger candidate than the moth I photographed a week ago on the bathroom ceiling, and decided was Blastobasis adustella. This time I was much more certain.

Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix

Blastobasis adustella

Turning briefly to birds, I saw four Swifts this morning, which reminded me how poor it has been for them around here this year. On the other hand our feeders were deluged in Blue Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Great Tits, and Coal Tits this morning. The activity being so frenetic that Lyn and I abandoned the telly and ate our breakfast watching them come and go.

Hungry juvenile Blue Tits