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

Conquered Tree

The invasive alien Horse Chestnut Leaf-miner was first recorded in VC55 in late 2005 at one site. During 2006, it started to appear at further widespread sites in the county but still at a fairly low level - you had to look but once you found an infested area the local trees were all affected. This year it seems more likely that you would have to search for somewhere that doesn't have infested trees. I've seen them everywhere. This particular tree on the edge of our estate is heavily infested - yet there are plenty of conkers so maybe the moths are not too destructive. Every leaf affected Multiple mines on each lobe - some merging into each other It's only 7 years since the species was first detected in the UK - it won't be too long before it reaches the far south-west and north. It's been suggested that on the continent some populations have stabilised c10 years after colonisation. However it has also started mining Sycamore and Norway Maple so maybe it will just keep jumping hosts!

Larval laugh

Came home from work and whilst pottering about I went to check various boxed larvae to see how they were doing. Found a small box with this in it:



Somehow I don't think Nichola takes my hobbies very seriously!

Here's another blokey joke that is no doubt too puerile for serious comedians: A couple's relationship is on the rocks, so they go to a marriage guidance councillor. He asks them to start off positively by thinking of things they have in common. There follows a long period of uncomfortable silence. Eventually, the husband offers 'well - neither of us gives blow jobs ........'

Garden Twitching ...

No - this is not about a new listing craze where you tear around the country ticking famous formal gardens. The weekend Rosefinch got me thinking about other times when I've been in - or looking into - other peoples gardens to see a rarity. So, I had a quick look through my British List - didn't take long seeing as it's currently a paltry 398 species since I stopped regularly twitching in 2002. I reckon the best five birds I've seen in someone else's garden are: 5) Dark-eyed Junco - the one at Vicar's Cross, Cheshire, on 21/01/1998 4) Spanish Sparrow - the chirpy male at Waterside, Cumbria on 21/07/1996 3) Collared Flycatcher - this year's superb bird at Southwell, Portland on 02/05/2009 2) White-crowned Sparrow - the well watched Cley bird on 13/01/2008 1) Northern Waterthrush - the superb bird at Portland Bill, milling about in the cottage gardens when I saw it ridiculously well on 17/10/1996 I'm sure that there are a fair few more exciting birds that others have seen in gardens, especially those that were birding when the Golden-winged Warbler was knocking about, plus a few Tanagers over the years. What's on your top five 'garden twitch' list?

A near miss, and the end is nigh

Last one from the Dungeness trip, and one that nearly got away. Whilst going through the traps we found a handful of tortricids that were initially dismissed as Garden Rose Tortrix, a very variable species. To his credit, Adrian thought something was not quite right and potted one to check. When I got home and started trawling through Razowski to identify other tortricids, I noticed a species that looked right for our Dungeness moth. I alerted Adrian and Keith, and before long we confirmed another new species for the night (and for me) - Acleris permutana Acleris permutana - specimen borrowed from Adrian, still fresh after a week in the fridge and a trip to Ravenstone for Keith to photograph! Meanwhile, the garden traps are still a bit crap with the clear cool nights. On Friday night a few of these appeared signalling that the final fling of the mothing season is upon us - another month and I'll have pretty much packed up my gear until next year. Blair's Shoulder-knot