After an incredibly quiet period for birds there have been a couple of records of interest this week, unfortunately none of them were seen by me! Chris texted to say there was a Cuckoo calling near Thrintoft on Monday. Depressingly this is only the second sighting this year.
Five minutes later he rang back, Turtle Dove calling there
too! I heard it purring on the phone and dropped everything and ran along there
(alright walked briskly). Typically no sight or sound by the time I arrived.
Turtle Dove used to be a regular breeder in the parish but, like many parts of
Britain, it disappeared more than thirty years ago. Intriguing to think where
this bird has come from? To finish off birds I didn’t see my wife had a Hobby low over the garden yesterday.
We have managed two sessions moth trapping since I last
wrote and added a couple more species to the village list. Pick of these for me
was this beautiful Map-winged Swift.
Not sure where this will have come from as it is a bracken specialist.
We also had a couple of these brilliant Spectacle moths,
only the second and third records we’ve had here…
Noticeably more butterflies about in the last week or so including my first records this year of Large Skipper and Small Copper…
But the most interesting butterfly was this aberrant Small Tortoiseshell with much restricted black and no dark spots on the forewing.
I don’t think the photo really captures how striking it looked but it was noticeably different even in flight at distance.
I’ll finish off with a couple of cracking species from my
travels. First is ‘Albert’ the Black-browed Albatross which graced Bempton
Cliffs for a couple of days this week. Not a great picture but a brilliant
bird.
I saw this on the 30th June, exactly 33 years after I failed to see one on Unst (on our honeymoon!)
And these are Military Orchids…
restricted to just a handful of sites in Britain we saw this
in Suffolk on a surprise weekend away for my wife’s big birthday.
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