Canada and Alaska 6 - Cruise Ship Seawatch

 

I am not a great fan of seawatching. I like to be able to recognise and put a name to what I am looking at and with seawatching my ability to identify distant black dots is severely limited. I didn't carry a telescope on the trip, but with a long lens and the ability to crop and expand pictures on the screen when you get home there is scope to pick up some good birds. There is also scope for some errors, particularly when it comes to identifying some of the Gulls.

I had seen reports of large numbers of Shearwaters following the Cruise ships on this route and the occasional Albatross as well but it didn't happen for me. Most of my pictures are of  Ducks, Alcids, and Loons and most are of the rear end of those birds as they fly away from the ship as it plows through their territory.

Identification - I used Peterson - Field Guide to birds of Western North America and Armstrong - Guide to the Birds of Alaska whilst on the trip but found that Sibleys North American Bird Guide gave clearer diagrams and plumage detail for the difficult identifications. The first two I picked up cheap in second hand bookshops. The Sibley I bought new and it stays on the bookshelf as it is too heavy to carry around.

So what did I see?

Black Oystercatcher

Kittlitz's Murrelet (White outer tail feathers are diagnostic)

Ancient Murrelet

The Ancient Murrelet with white patch on the side of the neck, short pale bill and with the next picture showing the white underwing.

Ancient Murrelet

Barrow's Goldeneye

Common Loon (Great Northern Diver)

Marbled Murrelet

Marbled Murrelet

Pacific Loon (Pacific Diver)

Common Merganser (Goosander)

Pigeon Guillemot

Pigeon Guillemot

Red-faced Cormorant

Surf Scoter

Surf Scoter

White-winged Scoter

Tufted Puffin 😁

Glaucous-winged Gull

Bonaparte's Gull

Black-legged Kittiwake

I'm not doing anymore gulls

Not the show stopper pictures I was looking for but they all count and most were life ticks.

I couldn't finish the blog without including a picture of a Sea Otter family , one of many that would swim out and spend the day watching the cruise ships go by.

Sea Otter Family

It was a good holiday but perhaps not the best we have been on. Covid restrictions caused some disruption and the late spring reduced my birding opportunities. Some of the scenery was spectacular and it was worth going to Alaska but as with Norway you would see more of the real Alaska if you traveled on local ferries and avoided the tourist towns.

As far as the birds go, I saw seventy species of which around fifty would have been life ticks for me.  The bird numbers were down a bit on what I had hoped to see. I did hit a lot of my targets particularly the Murrelets but I saw very few raptors other than the Bald Eagles and I missed out on the Clark's Nutcracker which was top of my wish list.

Puss Moth

The first week of April and the mothing has finally started to improve. I have not seen a huge increase in the numbers but with slightly warmer nights the variety is improving and I am no longer concerned about coming down to an empty trap in the mornings. 

There have been a few new garden ticks, the most impressive being this Puss Moth. I have to confess that I didn't find it. I had the trap out but it was Sue, out in the garden on a Vine Weevil hunt, that spotted it. It was on the trunk of a small cordyline about ten metres from the trap and I would have missed it if she had not been there.

It also posed a problem in that I did not have a pot big enough to put it into. I estimate about 70mm wingspan and 40mm length. Quite an impressive looking moth.

Puss Moth - Cerura vinula

A Blair's Mocha. This now seems to be established and breeding on the south coast and is a regular in the garden throughout the year. This particular moth being more heavily marked than most specimens I see.

Blair's Mocha - Cyclophora puppillaria

A Brimstone Moth, very common in the garden and although it's great to see the bright colours they are joining the list of moths that I would prefer to see less of. However, not yet quite as bad as the Light Brown Apple Moth.

Brimstone - Opisthograptis luteolata

Another new one for the garden, a Chocolate-tip. A beautiful little moth.

Chocolate-tip - Clostera curtula

Chocolate-tip - Clostera curtula

A Flame Shoulder, a common enough moth but I have to check them all just in case I get another Radford's Flame Shoulder.

Flame Shoulder

Least Black Arches, only my second specimen.

Least Black Arches - Nola confusalis

Light Brocade, it's not an uncommon moth but again it is a first for the garden.

Light Brocade - Lacanobia w-latinum

Another regular, the Pale Mottled Willow.

Pale Mottle Willow - Paradrina clavipalps

The Shuttle-shaped Dart, another common moth. This one seemed to be an odd colour but I cannot make it anything else.

Shuttle-shaped Dart - Agrotis puta

Spectacle, so called for obvious reasons. Again, only my second in the garden.

Spectacle - Abrostola tripartita 

Spectacle - Abrostola tripartita

And my favourite of the Noctuidae moths, the Toadflax Brocade. Not a particularly common moth but there must be a breeding population close by as I see them regularly through out the year.

Toadflax Brocade - Calophasia lunula

I still have problems with the Rustic and Uncurtains. You think you can tell them apart but the doubts always creep in. This one I am calling an Uncertain.

 

Uncertain - Hoplodrina alsines

An occasional visitor but always good to see, the Waved Umber.

Waved Umber - Menophra abruptaria

Another new one for me but this time spotted whilst out walking, the Small Purple-barred. Unfortunately it was too fast for me and this is the best picture I could get.

Small Purple-barred - Phytometra viridaria

The warmer nights are also bringing out some micros. These gave me three new garden ticks, the Yarrow Conch, Bird's Nest Moth and Violet Cosmet plus three of the regulars.

Yarrow Conch - Aethes smeathmanniana

Yarrow Conch - Aethes smeathmanniana

Bird's Nest Moth - Tinea trinotella

 

Violet Cosmet - Pancalia leuwenhoekella

Garden Pebble - Evergestist forficalis

Narrow-winged Grey - Eudonia angustea

Rusty-dot Pearl - Udea ferrrugalia

It's great to be getting some interesting materials through the trap once again. Just a pity the garden stops delivering from mid November to Mid April each year.

Rewell Wood

 

I have written this same blog, around the end of April, for many years now and it has always been titled Pearl-bordered Fritillary. It marks the start of the butterfly season for me and usually consists of three parts, see and photograph the Pearl-bordered, see and usually fail to photograph the Speckled Yellow moth and then, in the afternoon, go looking for the Duke of Burgundy at one of its locations on the downs.

Today that all changed. The Duke of Burgundy had come to Rewell Wood.  How it got there is open to speculation but it was definitely flying there.

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

We found the first Pearl-bordered about a quarter past nine. The sun was starting to warm the ground but there was still a cool wind blowing. Ideal conditions, the butterflies were just starting to move but were still sluggish and thus giving good views as they basked in the sun.

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

They could also we found basking on the dirt paths which warm up faster than the surrounding vegetation.

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

All very much as expected until another butterfly came into view. At a distance, the right colour, but a bit on the small size and flying a bit closer to the ground, a Duke of Burgundy. A quick record shot and a phone call to Dave, who at this point was out of sight about a quarter of a mile away and then I had to make sure I kept sight of it until he managed to get back to see it.

He made record time. It is not an unusual butterfly for us to see but this was a first for us in Rewell Wood and he wanted to record it himself. He probably also wanted to check that I had the identification right. A Duke of Burgundy and it had only just turned nine thirty, something of a record as they don't usually put in an appearance until closer to eleven.

Duke of Burgundy

Although we are used to seeing the Duke of Burgundy on open chalk downlands it was, in the past, more a butterfly of coppiced woodland. So it is perhaps not unusual to find it somewhere like Rewell Wood. We did not see any of its favoured foodplant, the Cowslip, in the area but there were plenty of  Primroses growing which are from the same family Primulaceae. 

The mystery is how they got there. I am not aware of any colonies within a reasonable migration distance of the wood. An assisted migration or perhaps they have benefited from the " Fritillaries for the Future" program?

Duke of Burgundy

Duke of Burgundy

We saw probably half a dozen Dukes allowing for multiple sightings from some of them. This is a good number for a coppiced woodland so early in the season and suggests there may be a sustainable population there.

The other encouraging aspect is that in the past the Pearl-bordered had been holding on in just one or two areas of the wood. Today we found them along rides where we had not seen them before and in widely dispersed areas of the wood.

A couple more of the early season butterflies, a Dingy Skipper and Grizzled Skipper from a recent trip to Levin Down.

Grizzled Skipper

Dingy Skipper

I have also seen a few Green Hairstreaks, one of my early season favourites, but as yet I have not been able to get a photograph of one.

Purple Thorn

 

Well the revamped kitchen is looking good but as well as being a bit lighter of pocket, I seem to have missed much of the Spring migration. Fortunately the moth season in the back garden has started and has kept me interested, although the catches so far have been poor.

As with last year I had nothing in the trap from the mid November to mid March except for one Light Brown Apple Moth and a Common Plume. My first real catch of the year was an Early Grey and a Double-stripped Pug on the 22nd March.

Early Grey - Xylocampa areola

April increased the catches a bit but I was still looking at five or six moths a night at best. Fortunately that included, new for the garden, Purple Thorn and a Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet.

Purple Thorn - Selenia tetralunaria

Purple Thorn - Selenia tetralunaria

Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet - Xanthorhoe ferrugata

Other moths of interest were a couple of Brindled Beauty and a Powdered Quaker.......

Brindled Beauty - Lycia hirtaria

Powdered Quaker -  Orthosia gracilis

...... with the numbers made up with Common Quakers, Flame Shoulders, Hebrew Characters and a good number of Double-striped Pugs.

Common Quaker - Orthosia cerasi

Flame Shoulder - Ochropleura plecta

Hebrew Character - Orthosia gothica

A change away from the northerly winds and some more humid nights would be welcomed. I suppose the Spring moths are flying somewhere but I am not seeing many of them in the garden.

Emperor Moth

 

It being that time of the year again, the Emperor Moth lures were taken out of the freezers and Dave and I headed off to Iping Common to see if we could get any pictures.  At first it all seemed a bit disappointing, with no interest being shown in the pheromones, but after about half an hour the first moth appeared and proceeded to search in vain for the female it was expecting.

The moths soon learn that they have been duped and after fluttering around the lure for a couple of minutes and searching the adjacent grass tufts they loose interest and drift away.  Disappointing for the moth and disappointing for us as there is little chance of getting a decent picture when they don't settle.

What you are waiting for is the moth that is exhausted from the search and lands on an adjacent tree or bush for a refreshing nap. Give them a couple of minutes to settle and they are then very amenable to close approach and if you are gentle to moving them to a better perch.

The picture above showing Dave moving one of the later finds on the end of his finger to a more convenient location for photographing it.

It was also nice to get a view of the underside of the moth and to be able to record the eye spots on the underwing as well.

The Emperor Moth, Saturnia pavonia, is the only member of the Saturniidae family of moths found in the British Isles. The male flies during the day with the female flying at night. A strange strategy for the survival of the species but then the male is supposed to be able to detect the female at a range of a couple of kilometers so will probably find her whilst she is roosting.

We saw about a dozen Emperor moths on the day, with a maximum of three flying at any one time. They were in different parts of the common but it is possible that some followed us around or were attracted for a second time.

Talk to it nicely and the moth may even flash the orange underwing at you but you need to be quick with the camera as the opportunity will not be there for long.

All we have to do know is find a female to photograph. A slightly larger and to my mind more impressive moth. Also a much harder challenge.

And the lure goes back in the freezer for another year.