Sunday May 18 - Morton Bagot (mostly)

 This morning dawned dry again, and another sunny day was in prospect. As I headed to meet Dave at Morton Bagot I recalled that I had heard from John C that the farmer had flooded the nearest flash and that a pair of Shelducks was present with a family of ducklings. I must admit to being a bit relieved that he had done that, because the alternative would have been a dry scrape with no waterbirds at all.

We counted eight ducklings. They are all in the above shot, the eighth being hard to see as it is mostly hidden between its parents.

These were not the only proud parents on view. We discovered there were at least two Lapwing chicks at the edge of the flash, although they were very hard to see. A single Little Ringed Plover was being chased about by the adult Lapwings before the herd of cattle intervened and everything calmed down.

Before we reached the flash the most surprising discovery was a group of five Lesser Whitethroats engaged in some kind of neighbourhood dispute. This is typically the time in spring when they sing less and certainly these birds were mainly "tacking" at each other, although one managed a brief burst of song. Normally its hard enough to see one of these birds, but finding five in one place is exceptional where no juveniles are involved. It's far too early for these to have been a family party.

Also entertaining us were two calling male Cuckoos although they were frustratingly difficult to see. Inevitably we started looking at insects, seeing our first Common Blue butterfly of the year. Dave saw a Large Skipper but I was busy trying to photograph my first Large Red Damselfly this year so I missed it.

Large Red Damselfly

Later on we saw a few "new for the year" moths (Burnet Companion, and the micros Common Marble, and  Garden Grass-moth) and also a newly flying Four-spotted Chaser dragonfly.

Burnet Companion

Speaking of moths, I put the trap out in my garden on Friday night and found 35 moths of 18 species the following morning. They were pretty much the expected varieties you see at this time of the year, but included one of my favourite moths, a single Buff-tip. This amazing species beautifully mimics a broken twig. I normally catch a few each year, although I missed out in 2024.

Buff-tip

I suppose the prize for the scarcest moth in my trap went to a micro with a very long name and amazingly lengthy antennae. It was Nematopogon swammerdamella although it has recently been assigned the English name Large Longhorn. It's only large compared to similar looking brown longhorn moths. It was only the second for the garden, and four years after the first.

Large Longhorn

Looking even further back at the week, my wandering took me up Weatheroak Hill just north of the M42 on Thursday. It was the coolest and greyest day of the week, and the habitat consisted mainly of a dairy farm with lots of Friesian cows. I still managed a couple of decent birds in the form of a singing Lesser Whitethroat and a fly-over Little Egret.

The views were reasonable too.

I've recently taken to leafing through my old notebooks and it saddens me to see notes for flocks of Tree Sparrows, regular Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, Little Owls and even a few Willow Tits. All largely gone now. On the other hand if I'd seen that Little Egret flying over in 1998 instead of 2025 I'd have been punching the air in joy.

Times change.