Super Strigiformes & Heron Bomb

Yesterday afternoon after work, I nipped over to Cossington Meadows to enjoy the owls that have taken up residence and been seen hunting over Swan Meadow in the last few days. Quite a few others had the same idea! After watching a smart pair of Stonechats on the edge of The Moor, I carried on along the track to the northern end of Swan Meadow. I got chatting to a couple of like-minded souls whilst we waited, one of whom was Paul Riddle - he's been doggedly surveying breeding Little Owls in the 10Km square I live in (SP59) and seems they are doing very well here. He knew about the pair down the lane - I thought they'd gone after the winter but they successfully reared a family this year. Before long we were enjoying the first active owl - a superb Barn Owl gracefully hunting over the meadow. Eventually we were also enjoying a superb Short-eared Owl which perched up on fence posts a couple of times in between sweeps over the meadow in the fading light. A call alerted us to Little Owl - and I managed to pick up first one and then another as silhouettes in a distant tree. By now there appeared to be two Barn Owls and two Short-eared Owls - though not all seen at the same time they kept re-appearing in a completely different place to where last seen. Before I headed off a brief distant Tawny Owl calling completed the scene perfectly. This morning I headed out onto the Soar Valley South (Route 1). After a couple of hours and plenty of walking, I had nothing more exciting to show for the effort than a male Sparrowhawk scaring the Starlings witless, several groups of up to 20 Redwings tseeping about all over the place, a couple (literally two) flyover Fieldfares and a few Goldfinches. The area is far from birdless - I saw 100s of birds. Trouble is that mainly comprises of 100s of Starlings, 100s of Woodpigeons, 100s of Canada Geese, 100s of various corvids and lots of Black-headed Gulls. I did notice what could only be described as the latest advancement in avian warfare, and solved a no doubt long-standing avian puzzle. A Grey Heron came lumbering over so I thought I'd try and get shot despite the crappy light. I was just clicking away and thinking I wish it was closer and the light was better when it happened: Ardea excretia A whirling vortex of shite falling down like the worst acid rain nightmare you could imagine. Of course it is also now explicitly clear why herons have long legs and fly with them trailing. Nothing exciting on the moth front other than the latest Blood-vein I've ever recorded when one came to a lit window on Thursday night. The previous latest was 15th October 2006, the only other year I've recorded it in October (usual last date each year is late August - mid September).

Mothing Memories, Tresco October 2001

Too dark to do anything useful when I get home from work, and I've left the garden traps off despite the mild conditions as I have no time to do them in the morning this week. So, to fill the gap here are a few old shots of mothing memories. In fact, they are so old that the resolution is pretty crap and I can't make the images much bigger than they appear on this page, so for a change don't even bother clicking on them. White-speck I was never an annual on Scillies - I genuinely felt that going every year would nullify the enjoyment. In 2001 (my last visit) I stayed at Borough Farm on Tresco for a week with Andy Mackay, Rob Fray and Richard Fray. My two previous visits to Scillies before this were in 1996 and 1999 - both awesome years for major rarities. However this year was the first that I was as much, and perhaps more, interested in the moths we might see. Humming-bird Hawk-moth Turned out to be pretty good, with the species taken in the week including a few fairly standard migrants that I was seeing for the first time like Humming-bird Hawk-moth, Four-spotted Footman, Pearly Underwing, Palpita vitrealis, Vestal and The Gem. Also good local species like White-speck, Shore Wainscot, Cypress Pug and Scillies subspecies of Feathered Ranunculus and Shuttle-shaped Dart. Palpita vitrealis The best night though was 12th October, when the catch included the following: Grass Webworm (Herpetogramma licarsisalis) Once the ID had been established (not straightfoward whilst on Scillies seeing as it is not featured in any British reference books) it was confirmed as only the second British record. This species is widespread in the Old World tropics including parts of central Africa and extending to Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Phillipines. It was first recorded in Europe in the Algarve region of Portugal in 1997, and rapidly colonised southern Spain and the rest of Portugal. The first British record was from the Isle of Wight in 1998. There have been a couple since our Tresco individual but still a very rare species here, a presumed immigrant from the adventive European population. Actually, only hours after potting this moth in the early morning I was out and about seeing Rose-breasted Grosbeak on St Martin's after an infamous boat-swap somwhere between Tresco and St Mary's, and then later a Paddyfield Warbler on St Mary's - what a major day! The rest of the week was less intense, though a drunken golf buggy joy-riding incident still makes me smile ....

Arse!

Nice one to all who twitched the South Shields Eastern Crowned Warbler. I knew about it on Thursday night but no chance of doing anything about it. I've been away on a very nice and very relaxing 10th wedding anniversary break whilst my Mum has the kids. I've been incommunicado and blissfully unaware that the Warbler was still there on the Friday and again today until I got home a couple of hours ago. No chance of going tomorrow either as my brother is visiting. The most annoying twist to this is that my brother actually lives in - fecking South Shields!!! He lives about a two-minute walk from the bird. I can't even use the excuse of going to visit him. Oh well - in the unlikely event that it sticks for a while I may get a chance.

Tuesday 20th - Reprieve

The day started badly. First light amongst a hoard of like-minded Little Bittern chasers and we all came away without seeing it. Arse. Then it turned grey and rainy and miserable. Bugger. Then we went to the football to see City play Crystal Palace. The first half was generally poor with another lack-lustre performance from City where they dominated the play and did nothing creative with the ball. Sigh. At half time I was contemplating on what a shite day it had been overall. Thankfully there was a reprieve when City woke up and stuck two goals in with the associated adrenaline rush that always cheers you up. Enough self-pity - here's a classic: One night last week, me and the wife had gone to bed early. I was in the mood for love and started to get passionate when she suddenly said 'I don't feel like it tonight, I just want you to hold me'. I said 'what!?'. She said 'you're just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man'. She responded to my puzzled look by saying 'can't you just love me for who I am and not what I do for you in the bedroom?'. Realising that nothing was going to happen I shrugged it off and went to sleep. The next day, I opted to take the day off of work to spend time with her. We went out for a nice lunch and then went shopping in a big expensive department store. I patiently walked around with her whilst she tried on several different designer-labelled outfits. She couldn't decide which one to buy, so I suggested she take them all. She wanted new shoes aswell, so I said 'let's get a new pair for each new outfit'. We went on to the jewellery section where she picked out a pair of diamond earrings. She was so excited, she must have thought I was one sandwich short of a picnic. I thought she might be testing me when she wanted a new watch aswell, but I just said 'yes, that's nice honey'. By now she was almost reaching a state of climax from all the excitement. Eventually, she said 'I think that's it, let's go to the checkout'. I could hardly contain myself when I blurted 'no honey, I don't feel like it'. 'What?!' she said with a baffled face and dropped jaw. I then said 'honey, I just want you to hold this stuff for a while - you're just not in touch with my financial needs as a man enough for me to satisfy your shopping needs as a woman'. Then just when she looked like she was about to kill me I said 'can't you just love me for who I am and not for the things I buy you?' We've not had sex since ....

GSK, Pec, & Bittern Panic

Not much in the traps this morning, but I still managed a new species for the year:


Grey-shoulder Knot

This is not a regular for my garden, and it's the first time I've taken it here at the start of its flight period, the other 3 individuals all turned up in the spring after hibernation.

Also 3 of these in the traps:


Green-brindled Crescent f. capucina - lacking any metallic green scales

Early afternoon I headed over to Eyebrook Res in the hope (rather than expectation) of picking up Jack Snipe. A quick look along the inflow from the bridge drew a blank. I also checked the inflow for the Pec Sand and there was no sign. Moving round to get better scope views I confirmed that there was really not a lot about at all (not even much water). A car pulled up and out popped Brian Moore (aka The Wearside Whippet) - long time no see. We jointly failed to see anything more exciting than a Red Kite (which was nice all the same) and a handful of Snipe on the far bank. Brian was only stopping briefly after doing RW in the morning, so I moved on a bit but nothing else other than a few Goldeneye fresh in. I then doubled-back to re-check the bridge and the inflow - there back in exactly the same spot as I saw it last week was the Pec. Still no Jack Snipe.

Later this afternoon I noted that the LROS website detailed a Bittern at Cossington Meadows - interesting but a bit late to bother heading over. At precisely 17:59 I got a text alerting me to the fact that the Cossington bird was now confirmed as Little Bittern. WTF! Way too late to get over there before dark from my house. Apart from being a VC55 mega (first since 1954), I haven't seen one in Britain anywhere. Needless to say I will be there at dawn (though tomorrow I am constrained so unless it shows before 09:00 I will have to go back).

This week, I have mostly been listening to ..

.. a bit of general stuff really, recent and current - like: Editors - Papillon Florence and the Machine - Rabbit Heart Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone Kasabian - Fire