With Dave away birding on Scilly, I was joined by Jonathan Bowley who was keen to see his old stamping ground and particularly the Black Redstart.
This morning the bird was a little elusive at first until Jon spotted it on a television aerial on one of the barns. We then settled into my normal circuit, noticing a constant trickle of Swallows and House Martins heading south in the first hour.
The ringers were in situ and were catching Meadow Pipits, while we headed for the old pool field where we counted five Stonechats and two Whinchats. At least four Whitethroats were still around along with a few migrant Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs. The flash field contained the usual Green Sandpipers, Snipe, and Teal, and before we left the site we saw a Red Kite cruising along in the distance.
Unfortunately all the birds I saw were too distant to encourage me to get my camera out, so I was left with the prospect of an unillustrated blog post. To get around that I decided to put my moth trap out overnight to see what was around.
The result was an impressive 74 moths of 18 species including two new for the year, and two new for the garden. One of those was quite a good moth. The White-point was largely regarded as a migrant and only appeared in Warwickshire for the first time in 2017. However the species has since spread from the south-east and is now recorded in moderate numbers each year.
 |
| White-point Mythimna albipuncta |
The other new one was one of the few micros I caught. The Meal Moth is associated with grain stores and is thus a rather urban beast. They are not especially uncommon, but its still taken me seven years to catch one.
 |
| The rather worn Meal Moth Pyralis farinalis |
 |
| Oak Hook-tip |
Perhaps it's not quite time to give up on moths, even the very common Oak Hook-tip is not quite annual in the garden so there should be scope for more discoveries in future.
No comments:
Post a Comment