The undoubted birding highlight this week (but depressing that it is) was a ‘singing’ Cuckoo by the river at Morton. This is the first ‘cuckooing’ bird I have heard in the village in at least the last five years.
Best sighting though were outstanding views of two Stoats in Morton. They were almost oblivious to my presence and I got some great photos…
The only other sightings of note were an Emperor dragonfly
on the river and my first Large Skippers of the year…
A bit different this time having just come back from a week in the French Pyrenees. It was my first visit there and what a superb place! Stunning landscapes, great range of plants, butterflies and birds, lovely food and a really nice ‘vibe’ to the way of life…
Cirque de Gavarnie (1400ft high waterfall!)
Birds included daily sightings of Lammergeier, Golden Eagle
and both Choughs. We saw three species of vulture, Short-toed Eagle and Honey
Buzzard from our bedroom window.
Snow finch
Water pipit
Rock Thrush
I also tallied up over 40 species of butterfly (despite the late spring)
Swallowtail
Southern White Admiral
False Heath Fritillary
Large Wall
And a handful of day flying months including this striking alpine
species Psodos quadrifaria…
As well as other insects including the superb Sulphur Owlfly…
Marmots of course…
And a few reptiles…
Western Green Lizard
Apart from the mountain peaks perhaps the most striking features of the landscape were traditionally
managed meadows and road verges brimming with wild flowers
Horned Pansy
Vanilla Orchid
As well as Pyrenean and high mountain specialities...
Ramonda
Alpine Gentians
Alpine Snowbells
Alpine Buttercups
All in all an amazing week.
This blog mainly reflects the pleasure of being interested in nature, but when you care about something then you feel it when it’s damaged. This spring has been the worst I can remember.
I went for a six mile walk around the village last week, in
good weather, and I managed a total of two bumblebees and two hoverflies. Bird
numbers are hugely down too with hardly any swifts and very low numbers of
hirundines (I have so far only found a single House Martin nest!). Resident
birds too don’t seem to be faring well with, for example, only three singing
Corn Buntings (against a typical count of 7-8)…
It’s an intensively farmed area so I don’t expect Amazonian levels of biodiversity but genuinely in 30 years of nature watching in the parish I have never known it like this. The optimistic half of me says it might just be a blip because of poor early spring weather etc. but the pessimistic (realistic?) side says this is the inevitable outcome of a constant year on year decline, particularly in insect numbers.
Anyway, on to more positive things because despite it all I
did have a couple of additions to my village list. Pick of these was this
superb Broad-bodied Chaser…
This is a species that has been increasing significantly in
the north and there have been a couple of recent records in the parish but this
was my first village sighting.
The other was a chance find on the garden wall, Small Dusty
Wave…
These following three are relatively common species but I haven’t consciously recorded them (or at least photographed them) before…
Splayed deerfly – a fearsome looking beast!
Bumblebee hoverfly
Narcissus Bulb Fly
And talking of keeping positive, it’s important to remember
there are some good news stories like the resurgence of the Common Buzzard. I can
still remember the buzz of seeing my first village flyover and now there are
between 5 and 6 territories in the parish. I photographed this one near the
river last week…
Interesting bird sightings were very scarce this week but I did get a new (sort of) ‘tick’ for the parish with a Bar-headed Goose flying over with a skein of Canadas…
More depressingly the Lapwing I saw today was my first in the village since March. Although I haven’t yet covered all the potential breeding sites I haven’t yet found any evidence of nesting in the parish this year.
Insects too seem to be in exceptional short supply, certainly
the cold damp weather hasn’t helped but even the last two days of sun have not revealed
anything like usual numbers. Nevertheless, it was nice to see my first Wall
butterfly of the year…
And I also picked up my first Painted Lady this year…
Looking through the excellent Yorkshire butterflies and moth
report which arrived this week,
it’s interesting to see how Gatekeeper has rapidly spread in Yorkshire. There was one record just the other side of the Wiske last year so hopefully It may not be too long until we add this species to the parish list.
Incidentally the strange male/female Orange Tip I found a
couple of weeks ago…
is just that, a gynandromorph. A word I confess I had not heard of until
this month. My insect is a mosaic gynandromorph, where the female and male
characteristics are mixed together, but you can also get bilateral types where one
half is female and one male!! The butterfly recorder described this as the best
find in Yorkshire this year (mind you its only May!!)
Another striking insect sighting this week was this Golden-bloomed Grey
Longhorn beetle.
They used to be mainly confined to the midlands and east of England but this is another one that seems to be progressing north with climate change.
Yesterday I went on a ‘twitch’ with Frank to try and see a couple of new species for me. The first was the Sword-leaved Helleborine at one of its few northern sites, Talkin Tarn. This was surprisingly easy to find and what a beautiful orchid it is…
The second target, Marsh Fritillary butterflies at Finglandrigg Wood, were not so compliant. Despite apparent reports of them earlier this week there were none to be found. Nice spot though and good to see the memorial to the great Derek Ratcliffe…
Pick of the birds today was my first Garden Warbler of the year…
Luckily it was singing within a few yards of this (completely tail-less) Blackcap...
so a really good chance to compare songs (which I always struggle to re-learn each spring).
On the river yesterday there were three very young Goosander
ducklings (this is only the second time there has been evidence of breeding in
the parish) and three Willow Warblers…
The latter used to be the commonest warbler in the village, after Whitethroat, but numbers have really fallen in the last few years.
Along Potter Lane there were at least two pairs of Yellow
Wagtails…
But only a single singing Corn Bunting…
They seem to be scarce this year with only three counted singing between the river and the lane against a typical recent total of seven or eight pairs. In contrast Chris says the numbers around Thrintoft seem to be noticeably higher than usual.
Yesterday’s sun, after a week of cold and rain, got the
butterflies on the wing. Alongside the railway I had eight Speckled Woods….
Plus Green-veined White, Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshell and 20+ Orangetips including this one which looks like a female but has orange on the underwing and bleeding through to the upperwing…
I assume this is just a faded male?
