Friday April 10 - Lockdown update (Birds and moths)

The warm sunny weather continued, and I was tempted to look out for birds every day from April 8 to 10, with a particular effort on the 10th.

April 8 was particularly noteworthy for a kettle of circling raptors extremely high to the west of the garden which reached 12 Buzzards and a Red Kite. There was also a trickle (seven) of Meadow Pipits through the morning, but arguably the most unexpected bird was a fly-over Lapwing. Shouldn't it have been defending a territory somewhere? Also new for the list were two House Martins which circled overhead and then drifted north. I'm sure its the first I have ever seen House Martin before the other hirundine species. Two Cormorants also flew over.

On April 9 my morning garden highlight was hearing the gentle cascade of a Willow Warbler's song coming from trees at the southern end of the close. I decided that as this could potentially be the only Willow Warbler I record this year (I hope not) I'd better try to see it. So I took a short stroll and soon located the bird singing in an oak tree. Photographing it proved challenging, but I eventually got a shot which at least shows its pale legs.

Willow Warbler

Whilst down that end of the Close I also heard a singing Goldcrest. That won't get onto my lockdown list as I have decided to only count birds I can see or hear from the garden. Mind you, if I'd found a Hoopoe I'd have been rewriting the rules in a hurry.

Back in the garden I didn't have to wait too long before my first Swallow flew north, and two more followed during the afternoon. Also seen heading north were a Meadow Pipit, and another House Martin. Both Blackcap and Chiffchaff were also singing. A Sparrowhawk was seen regularly, and was once harried by a Carrion Crow. It later perched on our fence, but I only became aware of this when opening a window, thus flushing it. The bird still found time to chase a female Blackbird before making a sharp exit.

Sparrowhawk and Carrion Crow

I've recently taken to standing outside the back door after dark in the hope of hearing something interesting going over. You may recall that I heard an Oystercatcher on the first occasion I'd done that. Since then nothing, until the evening on April 9 when a single Redwing called as it flew over. I felt some relief that I hadn't been completely wasting my time.

On April 10 I was outside by 05.50 and put in about eight hours of effort before calling it a day at 37 species. Almost all the birds recorded were ones I had already had since the lock down started; a Pheasant calling, a Green Woodpecker calling, seven more Meadow Pipits, another House Martin, two more Swallows, and a calling Song Thrush over. The Willow Warbler had gone, but at least three Chiffchaffs and two Blackcaps sang. Happily for me I finally got my reward for all this effort when I spotted a Kestrel circling some distance west of the garden. Strangely, I can only recall one previous sighting from the garden, which makes them as rare as Hobby as far as the garden raptor list is concerned.

So this is the updated list:

April 8
49. Lapwing
50. House Martin
April 9
51. Willow Warbler
52. Swallow
April 10
53. Kestrel

I also added a couple of butterflies:

April 8
3. Brimstone
4. Orange-tip

And this morning a new mammal popped out from behind the shed.

2. Wood Mouse

I'm glad it wasn't a rat.

Moths:

It was a fantastic night of moth-trapping. I ended up with 58 moths of 11 species. These included some surprises, including early examples of Yellow-barred Brindle, Oak-tree Pug, and my first Least Black Arches since 2018.

Lock-down additions were:

10. Satellite
11. Yellow-barred Brindle (nfy)
12. Oak-tree Pug (nfy)
13. Small Quaker
14. Least Black Arches (nfy)
15. Twin-spotted Quaker (nfy)

Satellite

Yellow-barred Brindle

Oak-tree Pug

Small Quaker

Least Black Arches

Twin-spotted Quaker

The full count of moths was 10 Brindled Pugs, 1 Satellite, 22 Common Quakers, 1 Yellow-barred Brindle, 1 Oak-tree Pug, 12 Small Quakers, 4 Hebrew Characters, 2 Common Plumes, 1 Least Black Arches, 2 Twin-spotted Quakers, and 2 Double-striped Pugs.

The Oak-tree Pug was in a rather peculiar resting position, but was noticeably smaller than the Brindled Pugs (I measured its forewing as 9 mms) which is below the range for Brindled and bang on for Oak-tree.

Here is a grouping of three moths, Common Quaker, Small Quaker, and Common Plume (which just got in the way).

From left: Small Quaker, Common Plume, Common Quaker

I also caught a couple of species of caddis-fly and photographed a menacing looking spider on the fence.

Nursery-web Spider