Garden Tick & Dull Watermead

Late home from work today, so here's an quick update but the moths shots will have to wait until tomorrow.

Firstly, I ran the actinic/tungsten trap on Sunday night. There was a sharp frost by morning and the total catch was, unsurprisingly, pants. 2 x Common Quaker was the sum total.

Last night's efforts were much better, with a total catch of 63 of 9sp. (125W MV 42 of 8, 80W/100W 21 of 6). Best of all was that this total included a garden first - although I nearly missed this fact until checking just before starting to write this. Sadly, it's another garden aggregate pending a det - Acleris ferrugana/notana (or at least that's what it would be recorded as if out and about). Also notable were 2 x Twin-spotted Quakers - a real rarity for the garden with only two previous records of singles in 2002 and 2007.

0688 Agonopterix heracliana 8
1044x Acleris ferrugana/notana 1 (NFG)
1524 Emmelina monodactyla 3
1862 Double-striped Pug (Gymnoscelis rufifasciata) 1 (NFY)
2182 Small Quaker (Orthosia cruda) 1 (NFY)
2187 Common Quaker (Orthosia cerasi) 33
2188 Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta) 7
2189 Twin-spotted Quaker (Orthosia munda) 2 (NFY)
2190 Hebrew Character (Orthosia gothica) 7

I nipped out to Watermead CP South at lunch in the hope of picking up Red-crested Pochard and seeing some sort of 'Nordic Jackdaw', both as found by Dave Gray earlier in the week. Sadly, neither was seen in a brief visit. It was dull, and aside from the lingering drake Pintail there were lots of manky hybrids, overly-tame Mute Swans and lots of other dull-plumaged birds.

Stretching Coot

Manky Carrions

Posing Coot

Manky Carrion

A faint glimmer of spring ....