Having said last time that summer is too tiring to get much birding in, I've rather negated my own argument by getting vaguely hooked again, on the garden moth trapping. After doing a lot of it in 2020 (because lockdown meant not being able to do a lot else), the trap spent the whole of last year in the garage gathering dust. So having complained of fatigue I've decided it would be somehow sensible to enjoy a regular 4.15 am alarm.
But this post isn't really about that, having tweeted frequently with my regular goodies.
Since the last post, other than the moths, it's been a few days not-really-for-birding-but-well-y'know in south Devon, scoring with the main targets of Cirl Bunting
and Dipper
plus a nice count of ten Balearic Shearwaters, lots of work, and the odd bit of birding (including yet another failure with Honey Buzzards, which always seem to have it in for me).
A little bit of a late start this morning: pretty breezy, so didn't bother with the trap, especially as I'd partaken of a few beverages at the village cricket club yesterday evening, and no real need to rush out. Haven't done patch for a while, but it's hard going in strong winds at any time of year, so this morning I opted for a couple of hours in one of the local New Forest inclosures, looking at other stuff as well as birds and generally keeping out of the wind. Patch can wait a while longer.
A brief Kingfisher sighting aside, it was fairly run-of-the-mill birding, with just 30 species tallied for the latest ebird checklist, but nice enough just to get out with bins and camera.
As expected in midsummer, not a great deal was singing, with Wren and Chiffchaff the main exceptions.
There were plenty of recently fledged juveniles of several species, Siskin included.
And also a few birds still collecting food for nestlings
I never get the time to really learn wildlife other than birds and lepidoptera, but try and enjoy it as much as my ignorance will allow.
Never going to attempt an ID on hoverflies, but a couple of nice encounters.
I've never managed to get on with odonata, but these two allowed pics this morning
Also always plants to enjoy, even if, despite my job revolving round them, I struggle to put a name to them more often than not. I think both these orchids are, despite being so different, Common Spotted, but as with everything else I am more than happy to be corrected.
And whilst I know this is an eyebright, that's as far as I can go with any confidence. In any case, it's very attractive and there was a lot of it.
An oil beetle disappeared into the leaf litter before I could focus the camera, and of the three new butterflies for the year for me (out of a total of nine species seen this morning), all the Silver-washed Fritillaries were far too skittish in the blustery conditions. Did still manage to get some nice 'fly pics though.
In addition to the fritillaries, Large Skipper, Green-veined White and Small Heath evaded the camera.
It was, however, even after quite a bit of effort, a morning totally devoid of moths, despite this area having been in the past for me a really good source of daytime records.
And to finish, there are, of course, nearly always deer.
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