Sunday 25 June 2017

25th June

Only time to visit the Magic Garden today. There were two Sedge Warblers singing and I saw the Little Grebe for the first time in a while. It appears to have lost its only chick…


A Grey Heron was catching frogs in the shallows of the lake but also made an opportunistic attempt to catch a Large White butterfly as it flew past


I also thought I had seen my first distant Hobby of the year yesterday but it was just a wind-blown, aerobatic Kestrel which eventually flew right over to perch in the Garden…


Given yesterday’s conditions it wasn’t entirely inappropriate that a Hurricane also flew over…


Seven species of butterfly were seen. The first Ringlet was spotted on Monday…


And yesterday I ticked off my first Meadow Browns


There was also a ‘fall’ of Red Admirals. I hadn’t seen any as I walked around the village green and down Greenhills Lane but on the way back up (half an hour later) I tallied up 14 individuals.

Other insects included this hoverfly…


Which is distinctive enough to identify as chrysotoxum bicinctum (or at least distinctive enough for my youngest son to identify!). I was also trying to photograph another fly when this wasp flew in and made short work of it…


The more you look the more you see and there were about 50 of these tiny creatures on the surface of a beech tree. Not sure what they are…


And this caterpillar which, given its host plant might have been a Valerian Pug moth…


Actually turned out to be from a Valerian Sawfly. I didn’t even know that’s what sawfly larvae looked like but you can apparently tell by the number of prolegs, six for sawflys, never more than five for moths.
Finally, the talk on Wednesday went well and more than 50 people turned up, we almost ran out of chairs!



Saturday 17 June 2017

17th June

Good news that the Sedge Warblers have bred in the Magic Garden…


This is the first confirmed breeding in the parish for quite a few years and it sounds as if there is a second pair present as well. The Reed Warbler, on the other hand, has gone quiet but perhaps on with the business of nesting?
Five singing Blackcaps are also in the Garden this year along with at least two Whitethroat (this one is carrying a ring)…


A Four-spotted Chaser was in the Garden on Wednesday but didn’t pose unlike this cracking Banded Demoiselle…


I recently purchased the new Wildguides hoverfly identification guide. You can tell it’s not going to be easy when they categorise species by whether you need magnifying glass or microscope to identify them! However, I am reasonably confident this is a Pellucid Hoverfly…



On Wednesday (21st) I am doing a talk on The Birds of Ainderby & Morton at Morton-on-Swale village hall at 7.00pm. Entry is £4 and money will go towards my youngest son’s charity work in Moldova.   

Sunday 4 June 2017

4th June

A Reed Warbler is still settled in the reeds in the Magic Garden and singing vigorously. I finally managed to get a shot of it today. I was reasonably pleased with this given it was singing from deep in the reed bed and I could hardly pick it out even with binoculars…


Close by I saw around 15 of these cracking little Longhorn moths (Nemophora degeerella) in a strange slow- motion ‘dance’. Look at those antennae!

This is a new species for the parish and one that is not very common in this part of Yorkshire.

In my steep learning curve of insects I have also started looking at bumble bees so this is I think a Common Carder Bee…


And this a Garden Bumble Bee…


But then just to confuse things this apparent bumble bee is actually a bee-imitating hoverfly Volucella bombylans…


It has two forms, one like this that imitates White-tailed Bumblebee and another that imitates the orange tailed bees. Nature never fails to amaze!

Saturday 3 June 2017

3rd June

This morning I headed down Greenhills Lane. After trouble with my Achilles tendon this was the first time I have hobbled further than the Magic Garden for some time. Pick of the birds were at least six Lesser Whitethroat either calling or singing down here. Two were carrying food but these were the best shots I managed of very elusive birds…



Three Red-legged Partridge were also down here…


Along with the first big congregation of gulls since the late winter (around 150 mainly Lesser Black-backed) and a total of four Buzzards. I also tallied up 15 Speckled Wood along the route…


Back in the village the first Spotted Flycatcher has at last made an appearance, around two weeks later than the average arrival date. It was in the Garth and in Jim and Sue’s garden next door I had two Painted Ladies.