Saved by the moths…

We have been running our fortnightly Young Naturalists catch-ups now since the the end of May and, seven catch-ups in, they are keeping me on my toes in terms of content. Although shorter than a normal on site meeting, making sure we have plenty to discuss for the whole two hours online has kept me busy, collating their photos so we can share them with everyone during the session, catching pond creatures beforehand so we can look at them under the digital microscope, and putting together presentations on other topics, chosen by them and generally not my area of expertise!

I have fallen behind with my Young Naturalist blogs but August’s sessions focused on dragonflies and damselflies (thankfully I now have a good number of photos of different species which made putting together a presentation quite easy)…

Life cycle of a dragonfly and damselfly

…and owls (thankfully the Trust’s image library has a number of fabulous photos of owls that have been taken by other members of staff or sent in by very generous photographers, along with their permission for us to use them)…

Owl presentation

Other birds of prey have also been requested, so the image library will be coming in quite handy again at some point… 

It is always a bit nicer to look at something living though, so at every session we have had one if not two light traps to rummage through and volunteer Nigel has also run his trap at home to add to our moth chances. With the exception of a few cooler nights, we have had a great variety of moths to look at, they have become a regular feature! 

Here are the highlights from the last couple of sessions, plus possibly a few that were caught in between:

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Sticking with the moth theme, this morning there were a pair of Burnished brass in the trap, unmistakable with their brassy, metallic forewings. There are two forms of this moth, which differ in the brown central cross-band which is complete in f. aurea but separated into two blotches in f. juncta. 

Burnished brass, f.juncta on the left and f. aurea on the right

We haven’t just been catching moths in the light trap, but also lots of caddisflies, shield bugs, beetles and this rather smart looking Eared leafhopper:

Eared leafhopper

They can be found on lichen covered trees, in particular oaks, but are incredibly hard to spot due to their amazing camouflage.

Fingers crossed for some mild September nights so we have some nice autumnal moths to identify for a little longer, or we may have to get into caddisfly identification…

Elsewhere on the reserve the dragonflies continue to be very obliging, with common darter and southern and migrant hawkers perching on vegetation behind the centre to be photographed – the migrant hawker below was pointed out to me by regular visitor John:

Migrant hawker

Migrant hawker

This morning large numbers of house martin were gathering over the main car park by Tern Hide and Ibsley Water, in preparation for their incredible migration to Africa, whilst the shoreline has also become busier, with an increase in wagtails over the past few days.

Yellow wagtail

Pied wagtail

Juvenile Pied wagtail

Yellow wagtails are summer visitors and they too will head to Africa for the winter. Most Pied wagtails are residents however those that occupy northern upland areas will head south for the colder months, boosting the populations already found in the warmer valleys, floodplains and on the south coast. They can migrate as far as north Africa to escape the cold.

Our Young Naturalists group is kindly supported by the Cameron Bespolka Trust.

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Skies Alive!

Today may have been the last day of April, but it felt more like the last day of January! a bitter north-east wind was blowing hard across Ibsley Water making it foolish to open the windows at the Tern hide. The cold had brought thousands of aerial feeders low in over the water in a desperate search for any sort of flying insects to eat. At first I though they were mostly swallow and sand martin, but it turned out things were a little more complicated.

Close to Tern hide there were  a lot of swallow, whilst further out over the water sand martin were the majority. Further away house martin dominated, especially close to the northern shore of the lake. All this made estimating numbers a bit tricky. In the end I “guestimated” around 4000 hirundines were present with slightly more than half being sand martin, perhaps 2000-2500, then house martin with around 1000 and then 500-700 swallow. All in all it was quite a sight, although one that featured birds that were not at all happy. Luckily the promised rain never arrived and it actually got a little brighter later on and many of the birds left to feed elsewhere. Perhaps oddly by the end of the day swift were  one of the more numerous species, maybe 500 were feeding over the water, many more than in the morning.

Other sightings today included a yellow wagtail and a white wagtail close to Tern hide, from where I also saw a single black-tailed godwit, 2 common sandpiper and 3 goosander. Elsewhere 2 drake pochard were notable as was a single whitethroat, an oddly scarce bird at Blashford and mainly seen in autumn.

The moth trap contained just 2 common Quaker, moths don’t like cold, windy nights, but then who does.

A Late Surge

It was a generally grey, humid day with very little to report. A yellow wagtail and a spotted flycatcher seen at the Tern hide in the morning seemed like the best the day had to offer. Despite the warm night even the moth trap was not exactly exciting, the best being a large haul of largely unidentifiable (at least to me) caddisflies and a female bulrush wainscot.

unidentified small caddis

bulrush wainscot (female)

As usual the Tern hide was locked up last and Tracey came over to take a look , just in case there was anything to see. At first the best was a single common sandpiper, after a while we realised there were two, then I spotted a wader flying about over the water, at first I could not work out what it was then, the give away, it landed on the water – a grey phalarope. I have missed a couple at Blashford before so I was pleased to see this one, I tried to get a very distant picture and the result is probably the worst bird picture ever to grace this site, and that is saying something! If you use  a lot of imagination you might be able to see what it is.

grey phalarope (honest)

Apart from this the lake was very quiet, even most of the tufted duck seem to have gone now. As I watched the phalarope it swam passed a sleeping duck and it dawned on me that it was a drake common scoter! I did try a picture but this one was so bad that I won’t distress you with it. Good things can come in threes, but despite looking hard we could find nothing else , apart from a third common sandpiper.

It just goes to show that just because there does not seem to be anything much around it is always worth taking a good look.

Black and Yellow

A quick update only today. Today at last saw us get our first black tern of the autumn, sadly they only stayed a few minutes and I missed them but a group of four is good and hopefully there will be more to come. When I have opened the Tern hide the last couple of days there have been lots of wagtails, mostly pied but yesterday 3 and today 4 yellow wagtail, not common birds here. The osprey from the weekend has been seen everyday until today, and I suspect that it was the “large bird” seen by a visitor to the west of Ibsley Water that flushed lots of grey heron, so I am pretty sure it is still around.

Hopefully more to report tomorrow.

Black Kite is a Long Way from Home

It has been a very hectic week and one way or another I have not managed to get any posts done, so this will have to serve as a round-up of the last few days.

The big news of the week was of a black kite, seen and photographed well on Saturday afternoon, pictures can be seen on the HOS go-birding website, just click on “photos” at the top and you will see them. Blashford seems to be a bit of a local hot spot for black kite with several records in recent years, although all of them have avoided me! Unlike red kite , which are becoming ever more frequent as a resident, the black kite migrates to Africa for the winter. They breed commonly across southern Europe and regularly into central France, although they are pushing slowly northward they remain rare in Britain, being just an occasional over-shoot migrant.

Other bird news included a pied flycatcher seen by the Goosander hide on the 25th, up to 3 yellow wagtail, a male white wagtail and an arrival of garden warbler, sedge warbler and swift, the last reaching at least 200 over Ibsley Water today. A few waders have passed through too, with up to 6 dunlin, 5 common sandpiper and a greenshank.

The main task that has been occupying the volunteers has been the construction and deployment of tern rafts and just in time too as the common tern numbers have crept up to at least 18. On Thursday we put the first one out on Ivy Lake and it was immediately investigated by a pair of terns and today we put one out on Ellingham Pound, in both cases using the shelters built by the Young Naturalists last Sunday. The next ones to go out will be the first of the new ones built with a grant from HOS (Hampshire Ornithological Society), they are much easier to move about than the old ones and should last longer too.

I will do a full post on the rafts soon, including a “How to make one at home” easy guide to making one.

On the way over to the main car park this afternoon I was passing the lichen heath when I noticed the masses of early forget-me-not flowering by the tarmac roadway.

early forget-me-not flowers

They are really tiny flowers, just a millimetre or two across, but there are hundreds of them, almost like a cloud of stars when viewed from a distance.

early forget-me-not flowers in close-up

I am hoping the promised warmer weather will bring a pick-up in insect numbers next week and perhaps even a few more butterflies and moths to report, so watch this space for more news.

 

In The Pink and Double Yellow

Bird News: Ibsley Water – common tern 5, little gull 1, common sandpiper 3, little ringed plover 5, goldeneye 3, yellow wagtail 2, white wagtail 1, swallow 30+, house martin 3+, sand martin c100. Ivy Lake – reed warbler 2, Cetti’s warbler 1.

A much colder and wetter day than of late but with rather more birds as a result. Opening the Tern hide I saw 3 common sandpiper and 3 little ringed plover on the shore near the hide and a few hirundines over the lake. It was then cool but dry and as I left the hide I heard a yellow wagtail calling as it flew over northwards. However the day fairly quickly became wet with a persistent light rain, this resulted in an increase in the number of birds over Ibsley Water. In particular there was an arrival of a small group of 5 common tern, a fine adult summer plumage little gull, complete with a full hood and a pink flush on the breast and a mixed flock of swallows and martins. A search of the islands revealed 2 yellow wagtails distantly near the western shore and later a single male white wagtail. There were also at least 3 goldeneye still present, including an adult drake.

The night was not as cold as many recently and there were a few more moths including a pale pinion.

pale pinion

Otherwise the day was quiet and I spent much of it doing an analysis of waterfowl data for the last ten years, which accounts for the lack of pictures here. A better day is forecast for tomorrow so there might be more people out and about and perhaps even more birds to be found.