Monday is generally my day-off from birding, but I'm open to opportunity. This time it was a Whatsapp ping at 07.50.....Black Tern at Earlswood. I couldn't go straight away so sat at home twiddling my thumbs. Another ping came through at 08.30....Marsh Harrier at Earlswood. By 09.00 I was finally able to leave the house by which time the Harrier had drifted north.
At least I arrived in time to see the Black Tern careering about over Engine Pool. I didn't fancy my chances with the camera and sure enough, I didn't manage a single shot before the bird departed just before 10.00.
Overnight I put the moth trap out. This gained me 116 moths of 38 species, of which 11 were new for the year. Most of those were familiar faces, caught every year. One however was my first since 2018, and therefore the second for the garden. Double-striped Knot-horn Cryptoblabes bistriga is a micro, but not one of the ridiculously tiny ones.
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| Double-striped Knot-horn |
Unfortunately at this time of year moths are mostly of the boring brown variety which get moths a bad name, and to make matters worse several cannot be identified to species level without resorting to the scalpel.
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| Grey Dagger (or is it a Dark Dagger) |
One moth in this category was probably a faded Scarce Footman, but my app was quite certain it was a Hoary Footman, which would be a first for the West Midlands. There's only one way to find out for sure.
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| Scarce/Hoary Footman |
Birds are so much easier.
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