What a scorcher and good birds to boot. I had a delivery to Leicester on Friday morning so an early start saw me nearing Ilkeston where the Great Reed Warbler was in fine voice and put on a great show from the reeds in its adopted home. Sorry about the crap picture but I was meant to be working.
The delivery made I turned for home and accidently found myself at Potteric Carr where another southern stray had made home this time Iberian Chiffchaff, all I can say about it is it was an addition to my life list but like a lot of others I am really glad it was singing. I had arranged to visit an old friend over near Scarborough on Friday evening so after a shower and a bite to eat Kes and me set off, the good Dr was on fine form and after setting the moth trap and watching the last Ashes to Ashes we headed out into the forest where we were rewarded with a fine male Nightjar which performed brilliantly.
An early start on Saturday to empty the moth trap produced a few nice moffs the best of which was undoubtedly a Broad Barred White, which unfortunately would not sit for its picture so an Elephant Hawk Moth will have to do.
We decided to have a quick trip round the local site where we were lucky to bump into one of the local sages who put us onto a site for Dingy Skipper, Mother Shipton and Burnet Companion so without any further delay we struck out for the site with high hopes, what a brilliant site all three species of Lepidoptera as promised and some stunning views of Broad-bodied Chaser, Four-spotted Chaser and Great Crested Newt, not to forget Speckled Wood and a Cuckoo with larynjitis.
After these exploits ringing on Sunday was probably not going to have much to offer but 35 species of moff and only our second ever Turtle Dove caught, with the added bonus of a fly over Great White Egret which headed north west at 11:00 and an Osprey which flew south at 11:40 rounded off a fantastic couple of days, a snooze in the afternoon sunshine, followed by a dinner at the Smiths Arms with Colin and Ali was well earned and much needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment