It was a sunny and warm morning. I met Dave at Netherstead and it wasn't long before we found a decent bird. A juvenile Peregrine was sitting on the nearest pylon, the first of that species since March, and the first juvenile this year.
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| Juvenile Peregrine |
The ringers had been hard at it since the early morning and had caught their first juvenile Grasshopper Warbler of the year, along with a Willow Warbler and a host of regulars. We were late on the scene but were still in time to see a juvenile Sedge Warbler which had just been caught.
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| Juvenile Sedge Warbler |
We headed on our usual circuit and 400 metres further on located a Garden Warbler in the hedgerow. This was probably the bird of the day.
At the flash field we could only manage nine or ten Green Sandpipers, although I'm sure more were out of view. Teal numbers have climbed to five, Lapwings were up to 37, and a Little Egret haunted the furthest flash.
We saw two Red Kites, but they were too distant to age.
As it was warm there were lots of insects on the wing including Brown Hawkers and loads of Emperors. We saw several Peacock butterflies, a species which I've found as scarce as all the other butterflies this year.
Dave is something of a fly magnet, constantly getting bitten by flesh flies. However I was thrilled to see a "different" fly resting on his back.
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| Chrysops caecutiens according to my app. |
I've looked it up and it does indeed seem to be a Splayed Deer Fly C caecutiens, which had obviously thought it had landed on a blue Roe Deer. I'm not sure Dave was all that impressed.
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