Saturday March 13 - winter bites back

 T'was a dark and stormy night, so naturally I put my moth trap out ! The GMS prefers participants to trap on every Friday night from March to the end of October, regardless of the weather. I caught absolutely nothing. 

The wind remained strong and just north of west this morning, but despite that I went birding. It was perishing and I had a strong feeling that I was just going through the motions. But there's usually something to catch your eye, and this morning it was a Lesser Redpoll fluffed up against the cold, sitting quietly in the middle of a blackthorn bush.

Lesser Redpoll

Any thoughts that this bird may have come from the arctic or scandinavia were scuppered by the streaked undertail coverts, the whispy flank streaks, and the buffy ear-coverts.

Moving on to the flash field, the only positive change was an extra Shelduck. So that's three Shelducks, one Wigeon, 15 Teal, seven Mallard, two Mute Swans, and two Lapwings.

I walked back across the weedy field reflecting that if it didn't get ploughed my chances of any Wheatears this spring would be diminished. A few Skylarks, five Snipe, and a Meadow Pipit were all I got for my troubles.

Back at the horse paddocks a few Redwings served to emphasise the winter is yet to depart.

Redwing

One final word on moths. The ghosts of my past (well 2018 anyway) have been coming back to haunt me recently. Any moth experts who had been ploughing through my "moths in my garden" gallery may have been quietly chortling under their breathes over the last year, because it contained some errors.

In my defence it was a steep learning curve, and I do try to get them right. To that end I had elicited the help of moth-trapping friends and various internet forums, but it seems some errors slipped through. I know this because I also submitted some moths to an on-line service called irecord. Last week I got some feedback from Nigel Stone, the Warks moth recorder. Most of my identifications were endorsed, but I have had to change a few captions.

So for the record, my first Middle-barred Minor was not a Tawny Barred Minor (nor a Marbled Minor ag as I was advised to record it), and predates the first I correctly identified by two years. Also, my first Clouded Drab was actually a Chestnut.

The gallery has been updated.