Friday March 22

A cloudy morning with a light south-westerly and a few sunny intervals. It was a rather delayed start because Richard B who was coming with me had brought a mysterious and brightly coloured insect he had found when transferring his shopping in his kitchen in Walsall. By the time we left for the patch we had still not identified it.

The walk around the patch involved a lot of chatting and some birding. I had noticed an arrival of singing Chiffchaffs here in Redditch over the last couple of days so I was not surprised that we found three singing birds at Morton Bagot.

However, the highlight came when we reached the former pool. Here there was sufficient surface water to make the mud a bit damp. These conditions were ideal for three Little Ringed Plovers to take up residence. We went on to find a fourth on the furthest flash.

Little Ringed Plovers

The flash field added a pair of Shelducks, a Green Sandpiper, a few Teal and at least eight Lapwings to the mix.

Given my success rate in recent visits I was confident of showing Richard at least one Brown Hare, but not a single mammal came into view. Instead, I was pleased to find my first Red Admiral butterfly of the year, a rather battered individual just out of hibernation.

Red Admiral

Back at Netherstead we found a dead Coot under the power lines which are likely to have killed it as it migrated at night.

Back at base we finally came up with a name for the bug, actually a beetle. The Ant Beetle.

Ant Beetle

They apparently awake in spring and hang around tree trunks waiting for another species, the Bark Beetle, to come in range. They then immobilise them by biting their legs off and consume them at leisure. Nice!