The Weekend

Well it's been a wet one, sod's law really, stuck in County Hell all week, weekend comes and it rains ALL WEEKEND!!!!!!

I worked from home on Friday so I had a later start and went ringing with Fish in the Chev reedbeds, we had a decent morning, mostly sedge warbs and a few reed warblers with the odd reed bunt and a willow warbler for interest. We had time to look at the orchids between net rounds, still a few lesser-butterfly orchids there but they were starting to go over. There was a female marsh harrier at chev as well as barn owl, 300 sand martin and 350 starlings.

Reed Warbler

Lesser-butterfly Orchid

five-spot burnett moth on a mist-net pole

There were some spangly-black caterpillars on nettles by one of the net rides we thought they might be peacock, but weren't sure...Boulmer Birder will no doubt put us right!



Ringing at Dru was aborted due to rainy mornings, so boring household chores were the order of the day. I managed a quick visit to Dru this afternoon, a common sand on the Budge fields a welcome year tick, broods of gadwall and mallard were on the main pool and the long-eared owl was hunting, from the Budge screen, the little egret was still about, flying north shortly after we arrived. Offshore 6 manx shearwater flew south.

Off to a works conference in Shropshire this week so news from Dru may be scant.

131 common sandpiper