Pagham Snow Bunting

 

Whilst not a common bird Snow Buntings usually turn up somewhere local on the Sussex coast every year. If I am lucky it is within walking distance of home with Goring beach being a regular location. This year, with November drawing to a close and no local sightings, I had to travel down to Pagham Harbour for my year tick.

Snow Bunting

The Snow Bunting had been in the area for nearly two weeks and had been reported regularly so finding it should not have been so difficult. However, the bird is well camouflaged and can be difficult to locate when on its usual foraging area on the pebbles along the tide line. With most birds you would expect to flush them if you walk too close but with the Snow Bunting you usually have to be close enough to tread on it before it will move.

Snow Bunting

I searched the tideline along the spit a couple of times but could not locate it, so thinking it may have relocated to a different area over high tide, I decided to come back later. Fortunately on the way back to the car I met up with "Pagham Birder" who seemed mystified by my inability to find the Snow Bunting. We returned to the harbour wall where he quickly located it in its usual spot. 

My thanks to Trevor for the help but it's always a bit easier when you know where the usual spot is!

Snow Bunting

After a vey quiet autumn it was great to see the harbour starting to fill up with birds. Duck numbers where building nicely, with Brent Geese starting to arrive and flocks of waders circling around the harbour.

Particularly impressive where some large flocks of Knot roosting out on the shingle bars and harbour islands.

Knot

They were even more impressive in flight but it is always difficult to capture the scale and effect of the swirling flock in a still picture.

Knot

There were plenty of Stonechats along the spit but it was sad to see that the little lagoon had been eliminated by tidal movements and that the trees and bushes used for nesting by the linnet flock were now underwater.

Stonechat

There were Mergansers and a Slavonian Grebe in the harbour but having left the scope in the car I did not get to see them. 

Also interesting was a Sandwich Tern fishing in the harbour. It was probably a lot easier than attempting to find food on the rough sea beyond the spit. Its attempts proved successful and the shot below shows it flying off with a rather large fish.

Sandwich Tern

To finish, two of pictures of a Black-necked Grebe resident  for a short period  at the beginning of October on the lake at Brooklands Park. It is good to see that recent improvements there are turning it into a more promising area for nature.

Lets hope the Grebe is a sign of better things to come.

Autumn Moths

 

The garden mothing season is coming to an end. I have tried putting the trap out through the winter but I see very few moths and nothing of real interest. I also now have to contend with the thought of wasting all that electricity to power the trap for a potential zero return.

My total for the year to date is 297 species with around 215 of those being caught in the garden. Not bad given my urban location although I do benefit from being on the south coast and thus the chance of the occasional migrant species. 

Looking back , the year could have delivered a better total but with a cold spring I was off to a poor start and later in the year I didn't get the trap out as often as I would have liked.

Even so, the last two or three months have still proved to be interesting with a few new species for the garden list amongst the usual autumn regulars.

Bordered Straw - Heliothis peltigera 

European Corn Borer - Ostrinia nubilalis

Scarce Bordered Straw - Helicoverpa armigera

These first three are possible immigrant species although they may now be able to establish temporary colonies along the south coast.

Four-spotted Footman - Lithosia quadra

The Footman was caught in a spiders web. I rescued it but it didn't last very long. I'm never sure if I should intervene or just let nature take its course. Spiders have to live as well but not when a new garden tick is a stake.

Fern Smut - Psychoides filicivora

Little Ermel - Swammerdamia pyrella

Toadflax Pug - Eupithecia linariata

Plus two new species trapped whilst spending a night up in Suffolk.

Hedge Rustic - Tholera cespitis

Centre-barred Sallow - Atethmia centrago

Numbers wise, there were still some good mothing nights but each year this autumn period seems to be dominated by four species, Rush Veneers, Heart and Dart, Light Brown Apple Moths, and the various Yellow Underwings. Most are in poor condition and emptying the trap in the morning can be a real disappointment.

Perhaps the only good news is that the number of Box Tree moths has fallen drastically this year, although this is probably because their food plant has all but disappeared in the area.

Some of the more interesting moths in the garden trap are shown below

Clancy’s Rustic - Caradrina kadenii

Common Marbled Carpet - Chloroclysta truncata

Flounced Rustic - Luperina testacea

Garden Tiger - Arctia caja

Green Carpet - Colostygia pectinataria

Peach Blossom - Thyatira batis

Pebble Hook-tip - Drepana falcataria

Plumed Fan-foot - Pechipogo plumigeralis

Red-green Carpet - Chloroclysta siterata

Satin Wave - Idaea subsericeata

and a Carnation Tortrix from Pagham Harbour.

Carnation Tortrix - Cacoecimorpha pronubana

One final moth, found waiting for me by the front door when we came home yesterday afternoon, a Vapourer. Most years I see plenty of them flying around the garden during the day. This year just one in early July and this one mid November.

Vapourer - Orgyia antiqua

Red-backed Shrike

 

The mantra is - see the bird, get a record shot, get a quality picture. Quality pictures being the real objective and they are few and far between. I have probably only ever seen half a dozen Red-backed Shrikes but in my gallery of those shots, deemed as quality keepers, I have more pictures of them than of any other species.

They are a bird that seems to have little fear of humans or disturbance. They tend to establish small territories to which they stay loyal for days or even weeks and they sit out in the open for long periods at easy eye or camera level. If you can't get a decent picture, then it's probably time to give up on the photography. 

The juvenile recently reported at Medmerry proved to be equally obliging

Most birds seen in the UK these days are on migration passage but they were once a common breeding bird in this country.

A report - The past and present status of the Red-backed Shrike in Great Britain (Peakall, 1962) gave evidence of the decline of the bird as a breeding population. It is now virtually extinct in this country as a breeding species and is a Red List schedule 1 bird.

Egg collectors got some of the blame for the loss of the last few birds but the report suggests that the warmer, wetter summers lead to smaller numbers of large flying insects and therefore to a decrease of those species of birds which specialise in preying upon them. 

This does not bode well for some other species, likely to re- establish themselves here, that would be seeking the same prey - White Stork, Black Stork, Roller, Hoopoe and possibly Bee Eater. Lets hope the warmer dryer summers we are now experiencing increase the populations of these larger insects although I have my doubts given the continuing decline I see about me

I did also get to see the Buff-breasted Sandpiper whilst I was at Medmerry. I also took a picture but at 400 metres and with a heat haze it hardly even qualifies as a record shot. Fortunately the view through the scope, the location and the Jizz were enough to convince me.

Why can't all birds present themselves like the Red-backed Shrike?

Long-tailed Blue(s)

 

Long-tailed Blues are becoming more common along the south coast, although I believe they are all migrants or from late year broods of those migrants. They do not appear to be able to set up permanent colonies or to survive our winters in any stage of their life cycle. 

I have spent many an hour searching for them. Numbers vary year to year but they do seem to have favoured locations with Shoreham and Whitehawk Hill in Brighton being regular haunts. Find the laval food plant, which both these areas have and you will have a good chance of finding the butterfly.

This year I thought I would try a different approach and convinced Sue to plant Everlasting Pea in one of the flower beds. It produces masses of flowers for picking but it is a bit of a beast and needs regular cutting back to stop it from taking over the whole of the bed.

In the end Sue's preference for a tidy garden got the better of her and she cut it all back a few days ago. I thought nothing more of it until I walked into the kitchen on Tuesday and found a Long-tailed Blue sheltering from the heavy rain outside.

It couldn't go anywhere until the rain stopped so it was easy enough to get a couple of record shots including the near full open wing shot below which you don't see very often.

Later that day there was another sighting on the outside of the kitchen window. This butterfly either carrying a damaged rear wing or possibly a newly emerged specimen where the wing had not pumped up completely.

 

I tried the butterfly on a few of the house plants but it would not stay on any of them, preferring the walls, windows, and work surfaces of the kitchen. 

It seemed quite docile so the next morning when it had stopped raining I took it outside in an attempt to get a picture of it nectaring on a flower. Docile it may have acted but by then it had had enough and it disappeared up high and then away over the garden fence into the distance.

Two is good but the next day with heavy rain again I found a third Long-tailed Blue sheltering in the kitchen. Checking the wing markings it appeared to be a different butterfly. Again it did not seem to like staying on any of the house plants but was happy posing on the windows and work surfaces.

I took a few pictures and when the rain stopped opened the window for it to fly out. 

Later that day there were two small blue butterflies jousting high over the lawn for a couple of minutes. The flight looked like Long-tailed Blues but I cannot be certain and they were moving too fast to pick out any wing markings or signs of the tails.

I got my butterfly net out but there seemed no point in catching them. All the specimens I had caught where in pristine condition. I had my pictures so why risk damaging them with the net.

The everlasting pea has gone and I doubt that Sue would plant it again but I am sure she would not have been able to get all the root out. It is going to be a case of watch this space and then a discussion on the merits of supporting a rare butterfly against a bit of extra work in managing the Everlasting Pea. The only risk - Long-tailed Blue caterpillars may be munching their way through her french beans as I type and that would not be good!

Selsey Squacco

 

The location, Broad Rife feeding into Pagham Harbour at the far western end of the North Wall. It is a fifty metre stretch of rife, seemingly nothing special and yet for the second time in just three years it was temporary home to a Squacco Heron for most of August. Perhaps it was the same bird making a return visit or maybe this is what Squacco heaven looks like and we can expect more birds to put in an appearance in the future. Cattle Egrets were a rarity like the Squacco only a few years back, now they are here in big numbers. Who knows what may happen?

I visited three times whilst it was in residence and whilst it did at times show well and some lucky birders did get close up views, for me, it was always distant. Added to that we had a heat haze and heavy air pollution due to the lack of rain, which resulting in the photographs lacking any real detail.

I took a good number of pictures but the only ones I kept were one of it flying in and another of it with a large fish it had caught.

Fortunately I still have pictures from the earlier visit when I was lucky enough to have the bird all to myself for a couple of hours and where it proved to be very confiding, giving much better views.

There have been a few other good birds around Pagham Harbour but most were staying distant. I managed shots of a Sedge Warbler and Spotted Flycatcher but the Redstarts and Pied Flycatchers, amongst others, were staying just outside of quality picture range.

Sedge Warbler

Spotted Flycatcher

Sadly the Squacco has now moved on. Lets hope it returns next year.

July Garden Moths

 

July started much as June had ended with some good mothing nights and with a good variety of moths but as I only use actinic lights perhaps not in the numbers some people get to report.

My main interest is in my garden list so the following are some of the additions to that list during the month plus a few other pictures of moths that I enjoyed.

There were also the four Garden Clearwings during the month but see the earlier blog for details of those.

Blackneck - Lygephila pastinum

Blood-vein - Timandra comae

Bordered Straw - Heliothis peltigera

Broad-barred White - Hecatera bicolorata

Clay - Mythimna ferrago

Comfrey Ermel - Ethmia quadrillella

Coronet - Craniophora ligustri

Dark Bordered Pearl - Evergestis limbata

Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet - Xanthorhoe ferrugata

Double-striped Tabby - Hypsopygia glaucinalis

Dun-bar - Cosmia trapezina

Really not sure about the next one. It looks like pictures I have seen of False Mocha but I know these Cyclophora genus can be difficult to tell apart and are even capable of interbreeding so the jury is out on this one. I do not dissect the moths I catch.

Possible False Mocha - Cyclophora porata

Garden Tiger, a regular in the garden but always a bit of a disappointment as I am still waiting for the first garden Jersey Tiger.

Garden Tiger - Arctia caja

Gold Spot - Plusia festucae

The Herald, another moth I have waited a long time to see, just intrigued by its unusual shape.

Herald - Scoliopteryx libatrix

After catching lots of the Scarce Footman and spending a lot of time examining them in the hope of finding a Hoary Footman, this turned up in the trap. There have been pale Scarce Footman in the past but nothing like this one and the white underwing was also visible.

Hoary Footman - Eilema caniola

Iron Prominent - Notodonta dromedarius

July Highflyer  - Hydriomena furcata

I nearly dismissed the next moth as another Grass Veneer, but it just looked that bit different and further investigation showed it to be a Juniper Webber.

Juniper Webber - Dichomeris marginella

Knapweed Conch - Agapeta zoegana

Knot Grass - Acronicta rumicis

I have to confess, the next moth was caught in a friends garden across the border in Eastleigh but having put it in the blog in error I couldn't bring myself to take it out.

Lackey - Malacosoma neustris

Large Ranunculus, I had my doubts on this one as its usual flight period is September to October but with those markings the only alternative was the Black-banded Polymixis xanthomista which would have been an even bigger surprise.

Large Ranunculus - Polymixis flavicincta

Lychnis - Hadena bicruris

With the Micro Moths you really need a hand lens or a picture you can enlarge to show the detail. In life at 6-8mm long you just see the Maple Button as a small yellow blob.

Maple Button - Acleris forsskaleana

Marbled Conch - Eupoecilia angustana

Marbled Piercer - Cydia splendana

Nut-tree Tussock - Colocasia coryli

Oak Hook-tip - Watsonalla binaria

Rosy Rustic - Hydraecia micacea

Next the nationally scarce Rosy-stripped Knot-horn a nice find but probably a migrant. One of the benefits of living near the coast.

Rosy-striped Knot-horn - Oncocera semirubella

September Thorn - Ennomas erosaria

Single-dotted Wave - Idaea dimidata

Small Emerald - Hemistola chrysoprasaria

Straw-barred Pearl - Pyrausta despicata

Tawny Shears - Hadena perplexa

Also a lot more of the Tree-lichen Beauty this year against only one last year.

Tree-lichen Beauty - Cryphia algae

Vapourer - Orgyia antiqua

What will August deliver and how will the hot weather and drought impact on the numbers, size and variety?