Sunday February 4 - Trying to make things happen

 The current birding malaise is of course due to the time of year. There seems to be little to be done about it, but Dave and I did our best at Morton Bagot. 

For one thing there was a chance that the colour-ringed Stonechat might still be present. Our chances of reading the ring were hampered by my forgetting to put my scope in the car, and this was particularly regretted when we duly found the bird to be still there. The camera was the only option, and I tried harder than last week to creep up on the Chat.

Ring still illegible despite heavy cropping

The female Stonechat was more obliging, but was definitely unringed. In the afternoon, Tony came down with his scope and camera, but the wind had got up and he was unable to get a clear enough view of the ringed male.

Female Stonechat

Another option was to count Jack Snipe in the pool/scrape field. This involves higher levels of disturbance than I would like, but we kicked up five Jack Snipe and a similar number of Common Snipe. I also found a Barn Owl's feather as I made my way across.

Barn Owl feather

There wasn't much else to commend the visit. Lapwings were down to just two birds, and the small party of Teal on the furthest flash were no longer accompanied by any Wigeon or the Shelduck.

It remains very mild, so when I got home I decided to give the moth trap a try. Unfortunately it was windier than I had expected and the light only attracted two Pale Brindled Beauties and a Common Quaker. The latter was the first of the year, and was in very fresh condition.

Common Quaker

This species is very common in the garden in early spring. Also attracted to the bulb was an ichneumon wasp. As it was so early in the year I thought it was worth some research. This produced a name; the Cream-striped Darwin Wasp Ophion obscurus.

Opheon obscurus (or is it?)

Unfortunately there was a snag. Apparently these wasps are undergoing a process of taxonomic investigation which may lead to the ones that fly in winter being split into a different species.

There is a reason I don't look too closely at wasps.