Last night the moth trap went out for only the second time this August. With overnight temperatures remaining north of 15 degrees, it seemed disrespectful not to.
The result was loads of moths as hoped, but not the variety desired. Out of 181 moths the majority were three species; Large Yellow Underwing (57), Flounced Rustic (28), and Agriphila geniculea (21). The rest were the usual selection of brown late summer moths, and my final species total was 32.
New for the year were Centre-barred Sallow (two), and Six-striped Rustic, while other noteworthy discoveries were my second Rush Veneer, Chinese Character, and Light Emerald of the year.
While the extracting was going on, my Whatsapp pinged to let me know I should be at Earlswood. The Greenshank had been joined by a juvenile Redshank. By mid-morning I finished logging the moths and was due to drive to Shirley to collect my Mum. An ideal opportunity to call in at Earlswood.
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| Juvenile Redshank, its legs stained greenish by the algae |
I only had 15 minutes from the dam but it was enough to see both shanks and to make an estimate of 300 hirundines, slightly over half being Swallows and the rest House Martins, plus a couple of Sand Martins, and a Swift.
So the Redshank was #LocalBigYear tick number 129, a species I thought I would miss out on having failed to see any in spring.
Shortly after writing this post another Whatsapp message, this time from Joe Owen, had me dashing back to Earlswood. Just before 19.00 he had found two juvenile Black Terns.
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| One of the Black Terns |
Trying to photograph flying Black Terns in fading light with a bridge camera is tricky to say the least. The above shot was the only one which was not a total disaster. The important thing is that my list has advanced to 130. It sounds as though they were first seen at 3.00pm, but the observer wasn't sure. They definitely weren't present at 11.00 am when I was looking at the Redshank.
Back to birding Morton Bagot tomorrow.
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