Sunday June 25 - Out for the count

On a very warm and sunny morning I joined Dave for our weekly visit to Morton Bagot. We counted Marbled White butterflies (well Dave did) and came up with an impressive total of 172. Personally I was still in recovery from totting up a shedload of garden moths attracted to my moth trap on Friday night (more of which later), and also from the concentration of helping Leigh with a butterfly transect, so I failed to count anything.

We did alright for dragonflies though. There were lots of Black-tailed Skimmers, Ruddy Darters, and one or two Broad-bodied Chasers at the new scrapes, and we went on to locate our first White-legged Damselfly (never common here) for the year.

Black-tailed Skimmer

White-legged Damselfly (female)

We also saw some nice moths. A Clouded Border was probably our first for the site (unfortunately I was too slow with the camera), and a Six-spot Burnet was our first here for years.

Six-spot Burnet

We also saw several of the more regular Narrow-bordered Five-spot Burnets. It seems to be a good year for Burnet moths.

Speaking of moths, Friday night had brought 234 moths of 49 species to my garden. I do not propose to list them all, but there were pretty ones.

Scarlet Tiger

Small Elephant Hawkmoth

There were tricky ones;

Turnip Moth

On the advice of UKMoth Identification I relocated it prior to release and by gently blowing on it got it to reveal its underwing which was, as hoped, pure white (diagnostic of even the trickiest Turnip Moth).

There were 34 species which were new for the year (moth-trapping has taken a sabbatical since the beginning of the month) and just one which was a lifer. It was also tricky.

Dark Pine Knot-horn Dioryctria abietella

I've just remembered. I'm supposed to be a birdwatcher. The plain fact was that we didn't see anything particularly noteworthy. Except perhaps the fact that the local Blackcaps seem to have added mimicry to their repertoire. One was giving an unusually extended warble which had us wondering whether we were actually listening to a Garden Warbler. Later on I got a text from Sam who had located a Spotted Flycatcher in Bannams Wood. As my last act of the day I slogged up the path to the bench and heard what I first took to be a Song Thrush, and then a very loud Blackcap, then a Song Thrush..then a Blackcap. I eventually concluded that this was actually just a highly mimetic Blackcap. I tried the Merlin app on it, and it too was fooled.

Shortly afterwards I heard the simple "song" of a Spotted Flycatcher. I couldn't see the bird, so pointed Merlin at it and was quite impressed when SPOTTED FLYCATCHER appeared on the display. I sat on the bench and waited, and eventually the Spot Fly appeared....and disappeared before the camera could be engaged.