August 2026

Quite a lot of my August was taken up with jury service, a rather grim experience, so getting outside into nature was a welcome relief.

Four new bird species added to the list this month. The highlight was undoubtedly finding four Great White Egrets on the river on the last day of the month. This pretty much doubles the total for the parish!

The others were Nuthatch. They are a recent coloniser with the first breeding as recently as 2010 and usually no more than a single pair (in the grounds of the hall). But with no records last year, and none so far this year, I thought it had disappeared from the village so it was a pleasant surprise to have a bird calling from a tree behind the pub this week.

On the river I picked up both the first Common Sandpiper of the year and, distinctly rarer in the parish, a young Little Ringed Plover…

Other wader sightings included three Green Sandpipers together on the Swale, a flock of 14 Curlew and 75+ Lapwing feeding in the cropped fields.

This wasn’t the only sign of Autumn with the riverside willows alive with Chiffchaff calls today as well as the first Teal and Grey Wagtails back on the river.

Peter had two Spotted Flycatchers in his orchard, the first sightings of the year. A late Swift was feeding with a large flock of hirundines on the 30^th and there was a flock of around 120 Linnets down Back Lane. Give their scarcity this year it was also good to find a flock of 26 Tree Sparrows along Potter Lane today.

There have also been large numbers of Greylags in the fields with a peak count of 950 birds on the stubbles near Big Bend.

A good year for butterflies continues. One small patch of thistles near the river was absolutely rammed with butterflies, I had 12 species here including my first Common Blues of the year…

Moths, too, were interesting with between Peter and me a further 12 species added to the parish list in August. These included my first Chevron Grass Moth which turned out to be the first confirmed record for VC65 (North-west Yorkshire)…

I also saw my first Maiden’s Blush…

And Scalloped Hook-tip…

The Magic Garden proved excellent for dragonflies this week with at least 14 Migrant Hawkers present…

Together with Brown Hawker, Southern Hawker, Ruddy and Common Darter and an exceptionally late Broad-bodied Chaser.

July 2026

Pick of the sightings in July was my first Hobby this year, I saw it (unsuccessfully) chasing Sand Martins just downstream of Morton Bridge. It seems to have been a really good year for them down south so a bit surprising they have been particularly scarce up here this year.

The other addition was the first Reed Warbler of the year. It was a former breeding species but now only a scarce visitor. It was down in the Bottom Fields, near to where last month’s Sedge Warbler was singing.

There was also a Great Spotted Woodpecker down here whose parents should have explained not all tall, wooden things are trees…

I've mentioned before that Grey Partridge have made something of a comeback in the village so it was good to see a group of 14 chicks with a (busy!) mother in the Top Fields in Ainderby.

It's not easy to see how small these were from the photo but they were still able to fly once their mother broke cover.

The only other bird records of note were two Yellow Wagtail in a potato crop near Langlands and the first sign of return wader passage with four Curlews and 75 Lapwing near the river.

Fantastic numbers of butterflies again this year, I totalled up over 100 Meadow Browns on a short walk around the Greenhills fields and, more surprisingly, found only our second parish record of Ruddy Darter in one of the barley fields…

It's been, of course, a great year for Painted Ladies with lots of very fresh looking ones this month…

Peter had an interesting miniature one, only 44mm wingspan (about the size of an Orange Tip!). This seems to be because of heat or nutrition stress in the larvae.

But the most noticeable species was Holly Blue, I have never counted more than two in the village before but totalled up 21 last weekend.

I also had a number of sightings of Wall butterflies after missing the first generation in May….

The other lepidopteral event has been the good numbers of Hummingbird Hawk-moth with many sightings and in one case three together on a buddleia in Warlaby. I photographed this one in Jim & Sue’s garden last week…

In the moth traps, between Peter and I, we added an impressive 25 species to the parish list in July, pushing the total up to 476 species. Will we make 500 before the end of the season?