DOH!

TART!

As predicted a week ago. I had the opportunity this afternoon to get over to Rutland Water, down to the north arm, and to look for, locate and county tick 2 Rock Pipits .... hurrah. Also there were three Whooper Swans (at least I only saw three, but apparently four present), seven Dunlin, 5M Coot and assorted wildfowl but no Black-necked Grebe. After this major birding triumph, I headed over to Eyebrook to have a look for the still-present Pec Sand. I pitched up next to some geezer with a tripod mounted DSLR with reasonable lens operating out of some sort of archaic disaster zone relief van - I know Eyebrook is low on water at the moment but it's not quite at life-threatening drought levels .... I asked him if he'd seen the Pec, which he kind of avoided by saying he was just there to photograph anything moving. I started scoping and immediately found a juv Grey Plover, which was nice. Also four Golden Plover and loads of Lapwings. After a few minutes, the geezer started talking about a Peregrine that had put everything up and taken a Lapwing. He also mentioned that a few others had been digiscoping a Petrel but that it was out of his range. Eh? ..what ... Petrel? WTF! Then it clicked - I asked if he meant the Pectoral and he agreed that was probably it. Hmmm. Shortly afterwards Dave 'Tea-Boy' Gray turned up to save me from the geezer. The Pec wasn't showing though. Dave found a Red-crested Pochard, and the wildfowl included Wigeon, Gadwall, Pintail, Teal, Pochard, Shelduck, Shoveler - you get the idea. We moved down a bit and noticed The Beast and Chris Lythall scoping across from the opposite bank - we guessed that they were watching the Pec, and we could see a couple of Ringed Plover down their way, but we kept looking around anyway. The field behind us was heaving with what must have been recently released Red-legged Partridges - we reasoned this because of their blinding stupidity and the way they flocked together to walk calmly along the road whilst a passing motorist blasted his horn to little effect. Soon afterwards The Beast and Chris joined us and confirmed that the Pec was showing over there - as they had texted to Dave only a few minutes earlier .... not that Dave had noticed his phone bleeping. As ever, we enjoyed a bit of banter including a slightly surreal episode where a young lady came cycling past and ..... well, you had to be there. A bloody noisy RAF jet (Typhoon?) came over and flushed everything. Once it al settled again, it was clear that the Pec wasn't any more visible than before. Eventually we headed over to the other side and I immediately located the Pec. No wonder we couldn't see it from where we were, it was feeding in deep muddy ruts and kept disappearing momentarily. It was good to see a Pec again, can't remember the last one I saw (several over the years). As I left via Stoke Dry, a superb Barn Owl sitting on the road signs by the plantation rounded of a great couple of hours.

Merveille du Jour - get in!

About 20 minutes ago, I posted a comment on Stewart Sexton's excellent Boulmer Birder blog posting about Merveille du Jour. It's a cracking species that I've seen before, though not for a few years and only when out in woodland. It's one that I always hoped for but never expected in the garden. Feck me - a couple of minutes after posting the comment I nipped out for a last look at my garden traps and there in all its glory was a superb fresh Merveille du Jour sitting on the fence by the MV. Get in! Here's a hastily grabbed shot using flash - the moth is now potted for a proper shot tomorrow. Stunning Moth

Invis-migging, and a bit of light birding

Up and out early this morning to meet up with The Drunkbirder at Burrough Hill in the hope of some visible migration. Burrough Hill is over in the east of Leicestershire, and was an iron age hill-fort. It has clear un-interrupted views making it a great site for vis-migging - provided there are any birds passing over that is. Sun-rise at Burrough Hill View to the south View across to the south-west We watched from 07:00 - 08:00. A handful of Yellowhammers and a couple of dozen Meadow Pipits were the highlights, along with a few alba Wagtails and a small flock of Linnets wizzing about all the time. Maybe too breezy, probably too clear, definitely a disappointment. From there, I set off to have a quick look around the Egleton Reserve at Rutland Water. I made straight for Lagoon 4, passing a singing Chiffchaff outside the visitors centre on the way. Lagoon 4 Lagoon 4 Aside from loads of Black-headed Gulls and Lapwings, and a few Shelduck, there were c20 Golden Plovers, 7 Dunlin, 2 Ringed Plover, 1 Snipe, 1 Egyptian Goose and a flyover female Sparrowhawk. Even better, there was no-one else about that early. I had a very half-arsed hand-held attempt at digi-scoping Lapwings: Lapwing One of the Black-headed Gulls was attempting to drown itself: Emo Gull Lagoon 3 next - except that it has dried up and the lagoon is not there!? Arid wasteland More likely to find Bustards than Bitterns Scanning across the deeper water revealed plenty of Gadwall, Shoveler, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Wigeon, Great Crested Grebe, a Grey Heron and a couple of Little Egrets right at the back. People were just started to reach these hides as I left. This included one complete twat who appeared unable to hold a conversation with his mate as they approached the hide without bellowing - I asked him if he could maybe talk a bit louder. A quick look in Lagoon 2 revealed another Little Egret, but not much else. Is this: A) an evocative and well composed silhouette portrait of one of our daintiest herons feeding in the shallows, or B) a shit image of an out of range Little Egret photographed looking into the sun .... Quite a few late dragons knocking about, which were all (I think) Migrant Hawkers and Common Darters. Common Darter And another Also a few butterflies, including a brief Painted Lady. By now the usual Sunday Rutland Water crowd consisting of wealthy elderly dudes and complete knobheads was arriving in droves - time to go. As I walked out, I heard the following that would have made the 'Things That Wankers Say' column on the former Llama website: 'and I saw a Lark which was rare - I knew it was rare because I did not recognise it. That's the yardstick you see, if I don't recognise it then it must be rare ..' Alternatively, the lark was common and he is just shit at identifying anything. Anyway, at this point I was intending to join Adrian Russell looking for leaf-mines at Launde Park Wood - but that was knocked on the head as Adrian was busy. I was also getting peckish, and was mindful that a couple of hours later I needed to get back to Leicester to sort out my Mum after a hospital stay. So, I decided to have a quick look along the north-eastern shore of Eyebrook Reservoir. When I got there, it was also very low and really highlighted how little rain we've had for weeks. New Islands The inflow margin is bigger and further out than usual With all that exposed mud, I felt there had to be some waders knocking about. There was - loads of Lapwings but feck all else. There was also a big mass of smaller gulls - I studiously checked through them and found that there were all Black-headed or Common. The Greylag Geese provided a bit of entertainment as they bickered constantly, with small splinter groups joining or heading off every few minutes. I left Eyebrook via the back roads, and headed back to Leicester. Mum sorted, I nipped to the Soar Valley area to look and listen for a couple of Cetti's. One of these had a very odd range of calls and the song was not quite right - maybe a first-year bird practising. The other was classic. Both were stubbornly hidden in dense sallow scrub. I ended with a quick look around Watermead Park South. More dragons and butterflies, including Comma. As ever, the main car park area was overrun with twats feeding the burgeoning population of tame Mute Swans, Canadas and hybrid geese with too much bread. When will the Council be coming with that gun? Unnatural Parentage This Crows mother was its fathers sister .. With that, I headed home - just in time for a message that a Pec Sand was at the south-western end of Eyebrook - arse!

Leicestershire Low-lister

As an entirely land-locked county slap bang in the middle of England, with relatively little in the way of decent woodland, heath and moorland, it's no wonder that the County List for Leicestershire and Rutland stands at a paltry 312 species. Even that includes nine species that have not been recorded since 1941 (the VC55 equivalent of the BOU category A & B split ). In fact, if it weren't for some excellent reservoirs, gravel pits and Rutland Water being the size of an ocean, the birding potential in our county would be thoroughly dire. Despite that, we've had some stupidly rare birds turn up here (Bridled Tern, Red-flanked Bluetail, Crag Martin ....). For many years I really didn't think about county listing and made no special effort to see a species, that I'd probably seen in numbers several times that year in other places, just because it was in VC55. When I used to go out birding and twitching to Norfolk, Devon, Kent, Dorset, Scillies etc, going to Rutland Water just to see a Knot seemed entirely pointless. Consequently, my county list has plenty of gaps that need filling - I'm currently on 224 whereas the top county listers are around 260 (with Roger Davis sitting ahead at 267). Luckily, I did make the effort to go and see national rarities that turned up here, like: Redhead, Baird's Sandpiper, Arctic Redpoll - and that Crag Martin. I've also seen a number of good local rarities, like: Manx Shearwater, Gannet, Purple Heron, Bean Goose, Eider, Dipper. In fact it was mainly fairly regular species that I was missing. Since I got back into birding (sometimes), I've picked up 10 county ticks to keep me on par with other low-listing locals. I am now at the point where there are just two species that occur annually that I need for my county list - Jack Snipe and Rock Pipit. This autumn/winter I will be making efforts to see both. After that though, county ticks will be harder to come by. Excluding the nine pre-1941 species (as everybody currently listing in the county needs them), and excluding the nailed on dead cert Jack Snipe and Rock Pipit that I've mentally ticked already, there are 77 other species on the county list that I have not seen. Of these, I reckon 20 are extremely unlikely to re-occur anytime soon and a lot of (younger) county listers also need them, like: Little Bittern, Baillon's Crake, Killdeer, Bridled Tern, Roller and Nutcracker. There are another 23 that are maybe not so unlikely, but I won't hold my breath, like: Squacco Heron, Alpine Swift, Bee-eater, Citrine Wagtail and Great Reed Warbler. This leaves a further 34 species to realistically have some expectation that they will turn up, but even this includes some extreme county rarities, like: Dotterel, American Golden Plover, Caspian Tern, Shore Lark, Savi's Warbler .... I missed last year's Fulmar, this year's Whiskered Terns, and couldn't get to the Monty's. Skuas passing through Rutland Water are very hit and miss unless you live over that way. So, aside from the aforementioned two tart's ticks, I reckon the most likely county ticks for me in the next few years are: Merlin Sandwich Tern Little Tern Woodlark Bearded Tit Great Grey Shrike Hooded Crow Snow Bunting Of course, anything else would be nice! As an act of self deprecating public humiliation, I've loaded my county list onto Bubo Listing so anyone using that forum can see how little it is. I'm also going to post my lists on here at some point.

Recent Autumnal Moths

Here's a few highlights from trapping over the last week (generally clear and cold apart from last night, which was mild an extremely windy). Green-brindled Crescent - one of my autumn favourites Red-line Quaker - aptly named Brindled Green Feathered Thorn