Sunday July 8

I was joined by Dave this morning and although the Tufted Duck family were not on show, we saw the Spotted Flycatchers and the Black-tailed Godwit to improve Dave's patch year and life lists respectively. There were more Green Sandpipers on show than yesterday, we saw five, but Mike Inskip rang us later, and said he had seen six. Interestingly, Mike was down to see the Blackwit, which he did, but he had been here yesterday morning and hadn't seen it, so it must have arrived around midday. Bird-wise the remainder of the visit was a bit of a struggle, although Sparrowhawks were seen more frequently than recently, and the Tawny Owl was showing in the barn.


Sparrowhawk

As our interest turned to the insects we could find, the most noticeable event was that there were now quite a few Large Skippers around. I normally see this species before Small Skipper, but for some reason my first Small was last week, and Large were plentiful this weekend. We also saw some Roesel's Bush Crickets. This species has spread up from the south coast in the last 10 years, and is now quite common locally.