Friday April 19 - Morton Bagot

 This morning I had arranged to take a friend, Jason, around the patch so he could see what I keep going on about. Ideally I would have picked a warm sunny day, but what we got was a cloudy, frequently damp, start and a fresh north-westerly wind. 

This was a shame because Jason was particularly hoping we would see a Grasshopper Warbler or two. We even tried a quick visit to Morgrove Coppice with them in mind. Well there were none there, and at Morton Bagot we had to settle for a brief distant snatch of the reeling call.

Basically it was hard work to get views of anything. A singing Lesser Whitethroat showed only fleetingly in flight, the numerous Common Whitethroats were mainly out of view. A pair of Willow Warblers were nicely visible, but were only calling and not singing.

Willow Warbler trying to hide

Fortunately Jason professed to be thoroughly enjoying his morning. A Red Kite was flying around, two pairs of Avocets were on the nearest flash, while four Teal and a pair of Lapwings were further to the back.

Towards midday the sun came out, and we saw a few butterflies; Speckled Wood, Green-veined White, and Brimstone before Jason spotted some Green Longhorn moths, my first of the year.

Green Longhorn Moth

Also present in the same area were several bees and hoverflies. These included a Nomad Bee sp, and the following:

Syrphus ribesii/vitripennis (and a Melanostoma ag)

Melanostoma ag (scalare/melinus)

It looks as though hoverflies are going to be tricky. My photos fail to show various important features to fully identify them.

However mediocre our visit had been, we'd had a lot better day than a certain Helmeted Guineafowl whose feathers we found spread across the path.

An ex-Guineafowl

If anyone's lost one, we know what became of it.