Chats and Stilts

As a mark of how poor the mothing has been, the only interesting stuff I've enjoyed have been avian. A horse paddock not too far from home was home to a passage Whinchat for a few days, and on the last day of April when I nipped out to see it there had been a good passage of Wheatears too with at least seven seen across four sites.

And then in the middle of the week two Black-winged Stilts turned up at Cossington Meadows, so I nipped over in the early evening after work for good views albeit not quite a close as I'd have hoped. Just as well I had a look as they buggered off overnight.

I grabbed a snippet of video whilst there ....

I was sure they were a pair, with one distinctly blacker and the other with brownish tones. Later in the evening there were photos shared of them copulating so no doubt.

Today I headed to Croft Hill for a walk with Nichola, getting great views of a Wood Warbler (though no attempt to point a camera at it). It was only doing the 'spinning plate' part of the song though for the whole time.

Whilst out in Croft, I stopped to have a good look over a clump of Green Alkanet and found a handful of Scarlet Tiger caterpillars.

Surely the garden trap can't continue to be generally quiet and low on numbers and diversity for much longer!

Black-winged Stilt

Had a full family day out yesterday down in the smoke and we were home very late, so it wasn't until this morning that I had a chance to catch up with blog posts and news. I noted that Black-winged Stilts featured and even took the time to change my Seaton Buttons list to reflect the chances on one moving a bit more west. Like everyone else, I had no idea that at that precise moment one was somewhere between Oxfordshire (where it was seen until late yesterday evening) and Rutland Water where it was picked up at around lunchtime.

After a bit of judicial dithering to see whether I was being lined up for anything else by Nichola, I set off and headed straight to Lagoon 4 and scored immediately. There are already lots of good shots of this Stilt on the tinterweb showing that it is undoubtedly the same bird, like here in Oxfordshire and here at Rutland Water. Whilst I was there it moved about a lot, showed very well for scope views but never came in range. So as there are so many good shots available, here are some pants ones as I do like to show my new shiny county ticks off wherever possible ....

Despite the distinctly ruthless twitch mentality, I did manage to see a few other bits on Lagoon 4 including several county yearticks: Avocet, Curlew, Ruff, Little Ringed Plover, Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Redshank, Little Egret, Common Tern, Sand Martin plus assorted common wildfowl still loitering. I also picked up both Willow Warbler and Blackcap singing on the reserve, and a nice Red Kite just before the Uppingham roundabout.