29th May

It was a distinctly insecty weekend. Pick of the sightings for me was this newly emerged Four-spotted Chaser. The first record for the parish.

Close up those wings look like stained glass….

John Edwards also ran the first moth traps of the year in the Magic Garden. He said it had been a very disappointing year so far but last night saw a reasonable catch with around 90 moths of 21 species.

John had set three traps but most were concentrated in the first two. The third had little in it but I did notice that this trap was surrounded by Canada Goose droppings. Had the geese used the trap for midnight feasts?!

The catch included three new species for the parish: Yellow-barred Brindle, Herald… 

And Pale Prominent, looking like a piece of dried twig…

It was also only the second record of Muslin, and the first male…

But the commonest insect recorded was Cockchafer...

With more than 20 of them in the moth traps (although tellingly none in trap 3). Definitely living up to their name of Maybug!

But the birds didn’t entirely let me down with a Little Egret flying over the village yesterday evening, (the first sighting since the late winter) and a superb Hobby over the Swale near Morton railway bridge on Tuesday. The latter bird has pushed my parish year list up to 104  species.