Saturday

I tried an earlier start to my Saturday but there was very little to see. A walk along the front of the power station was brightened by at least 7 Clouded Yellow butterflies and several plants before the threatening clouds suggested retreat.








We spent some time at the boats, during which time it poured down, stopped at the south end of ARC where there were a few Ruff among the Lapwings and then drove round to the reserve, where the water levels are dropping to give some nice looking islands and shallow edges.
We drove up to Scotney but there wasn't much around so, as the ranges were open for the weekend we drove down to the end. There were at least 3 Whinchats and a couple of Stonechats plus a few Curlew dotted about.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Railway walk

After lunch we decided to go for a walk along the old railway town to Turners Field. It was lovely and warm even under the expanding canopy.
Turner's Field has a small herd of Herefords which were clustered round licking a spot just inside the kissing gate. A buzzard soared up and over. We walked round one of the fields and as we got to the bottom there was a rough patch with some flowers and where there were at least 5 Meadow Browns, 8/9 Common Blues, a Small White and a couple of Gatekeepers.
On the way back I found some Shieldbugs, first on some Hedge Woundwort and then on some nettles, plus a Speckled Wood flicking it's wings in a sunny spot. Very relaxing.

















-Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A glimpse of the past

Following a day at the Bird Fair my drive across the marsh was a little later than usual. We drove into New Romney and checked out the Autumn Ladies Tresses round the canon at Littlestone. There were several 100 dotted about, and a drive towards the water tower found many more growing in lawns and on the verges.







As we turned onto the coast drive we saw several people gathered with cameras watching the skies. A sudden loud sound revealed 2 Lancaster bombers flying by!! By the time we stopped they were heading away. Chatting to Dorothy we heard them returning so a mad scramble to park the car and get ourselves and cameras out of the car in time to photograph this unique event. Luckily I managed to get some shots of the 2 bombers, both separately and together. They were followed by a Spitfire and a Hurricane and 10 minutes later by a Dakota. As we had absolutely no knowledge of this event we were extremely lucky to be where we were when we were.
















-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Catch up

The last few weeks have seen summer take hold. Dungeness is looking brown again and the flowers are going over. The emphasis lately has been on moths and butterflies with numbers in my trap nearly reaching a hundred on a couple of nights. I have had a couple of new species for the trap, which is nice and it's been interesting looking back to see the differences over the last 20+ years.



The grassland butterfly numbers have been good round the obs with hundreds of Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers and Common Blues with growing numbers of Marbled Whites, including this odd looking one.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Short-toed eagle

As the eagle was still around on the Saturday we decided to drive over to Ashdown Forest in the morning. We found Gill Lap car park and as we jumped out the eagle was being watched as it flew around and up the valley. I managed to watch it briefly as it flew behind the holly bush and then it disappeared, apparently carrying a snake. We moved over the road and out of the way of the bush and eventually saw it fly above the trees above the distant ridge. It flew up and tussled with a buzzard for a while but never came very close before going very high and heading off south. We hung around for a while and then decided to go looking for Silver Studded Blue butterflies, following directions from DB.
We parked in the car park and worked our way down to the heather and found several male and female butterflies, especially when the sun popped out.





We then returned to Old Lodge to look for some dragonflies, again with info from DB. We took the wrong track at first but saw several Redstarts, one a lovely male as well as Woodlarks and Spotted Flycatchers.
The small pools and seeps had a few dragons buzzing about, including a female Emperor ovipositing.
Walking back to the car park we watched a couple of Woodlarks and then learnt that the eagle had been seen flying over the trees and it re-appeared for a short while before dropping down again. We decided to go back to Gill Lap but there were no more sightings and we went home.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Look down, Look up!

A lovely morning and a message telling of a singing oriole at Dungeness had me up and out early. The moth trap held lots of moths with White point and Buff Arches among others.






The oriole hadn't been heard or seen for a while by the time I arrived but several birds had been caught, including a family of Great Tits. There was no sound on a walk round the trapping area and nets but the weather deteriorated and we had to shelter under the bushes a few times to to dodge the raindrops.
As it was dry we decided to do a bit of botanising and drove up to Crete Road, Folkestone for Late Spider Orchid. There were lots of cars and people milling round and we discovered the reason when 9 Red Arrows scorched over our heads to give a great display at the Air Show. An unexpected bonus.












The orchid bank held 5 species of orchid. As well as the Late Spider, there were 9 Man Orchids, several Pyramidal and Common Spotted and a single Fragrant. The variety of colours was interesting. We did a quick foray onto a site for Bee Orchid with 3/4 Small Blue Butterflies.
As we were close we went to find a site for Clove-scented (Bedstraw) Broomrape on a slope below Crete Road East. This entailed a vertiginous trek down towards the houses and then a sideways path through some nettles and bushes to find some nice spikes, strongly scented of cloves! On the way we found some Shieldbugs to be identified and recorded.














- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Chipmunks

Moral: Ask a man who knows.
An early start for a foray across the channel to some woods south if Brussels to look for a mammal that we had thought about looking for for a couple of years, Siberian Chipmunk. Setting up the sat nav we headed north and then east from Calais via Ghent which brought us into a traffic snarl up as we approached Brussels. We decided to take the next turning off and try and navigate our way through the side lanes. We managed to reach the first car park in the Foret de Soignes by,about 10.30 having seen quite a bit of interesting country side and some pretty villages. The Foret was surprisingly quiet with Red-eared Terrapin, Grey Wagtail, Tufted Duck, Kingfisher, Great Crested Grebe, Coot, Mallard, Mandarin ducks and Egyptian Geese on the lake and Blue Tits, Great Tits, Chaffinches, Robins and Nuthatches in the Beech trees and over the car park 4 Buzzards. We saw lots of Downy Emerald and Red-eyed Damsels, with one person seeing Banded Demoiselle as well as some Large Red Damselflies and a few Emperors patrolling the Pond. Odd flowers of interest were Small Balsam, a Rampion and Lily of the Valley. The Beech trees were monumental and cathedral like, but we saw no,sign of the chipmunk so we moved to a second site where the Foret was very similar and though we heard a few rustles in the undergrowth there was no sign of the chipmunk. A third site looked very promising, with scarce chaser in a pond but a chat with a couple of friendly locals told us that the chipmunks hadn't been seen for a while. One last site was the Rouge Cloistre, an area of woodland, fish ponds for the monks in the abbey, which were used to control the water for the mill, and some gardens and allotments. It looked very unlikely but asking a man sitting on the bench we were told that he had seen them a couple of days ago along the edge of the lake towards the end. We walked along the path to the second lake and suddenly, there was one foraging along the edge of the path. A second one scuttled near the path before disappearing up the bank.





A further 3 were seen in this bit of the forest and then more were foraging among a pile of brushwood beside the path. As we walked back to the car we saw 2 or 3 more making a total of at least 12 individuals.








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The last month

Various problems with laptops etc and a slight lethargy means that there have been no posts for a while. The last month has had some lovely days and a few highlights are the orchids on Bonsai bank with the Duke of Burgundy butterfly, some nice moths in the trap, catching up with a Blyth's Reed Warbler in the trapping area and a great day out with friends visiting Monet's Garden in Giverny, France.











A day at Bletchley Park, courtesy of my late Uncle's donation, was very interesting and brought home the atmosphere and conditions of war time and how much we owe those people who worked so hard to keep us safe and shorten the war. Huts 3 and 4 have been restored to what they would have looked like during the war. Very nostalgic seeing things like Player's Navy Cut cigarettes and some of the clothes.















Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A sea watch day.

Because of the promise of a good day for birds I got up early and headed down to Dungeness, despite it beginning to rain. The moth trap held just 3 moths, Small Phoenix and 2 Brindled Pug. The drive across Walland was very grey and wet with little life, even on the feeders and the weather at the point meant that little was moving. As the rain eased, though, a call informed us that there were terns streaming by so we drive down to the boats, as the hide was full and unpleasantly wet. Parking so the the rain didn't soak the car was a challenge but we were soon watching flocks of 100+ Arctic and Common Terns heading rapidly up channel. Added to the tern movement there were also a few Barwits and I saw one Great Northern Diver, althoug I think there were three altogether.
AS the rain cleared the stream of birds slowed right down and we decided to check out the ARC oit where there 40+ Black terns had been reported along with lots of Arctic terns. We scanned the pit an found lots of birds, including Black, Arctic and Common terns.
We went round to the RSPB reserve as 2 Black-Winged Stilts had been re-found on hayfield 1 and they gave good views as they fed and then roosted in the shallow pool. A Greenshank, trailed by a Wood Sandpiper, flew over our heads and we just mananged to find the Bearded Tit family before the young dispersed into the reeds. Altogether a really enjoyable day with lots to see.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Dungeness

There was evidence of heavy showers as I made my way to Dungeness this morning but the day stayed dry but cold with a northerly wind. There was little reported from the area so we went to the RSPB reserve, stopping at the south end of ARC where there were a few Little Gulls in amongst the other gulls but no Gargeney or
hirundines.
The reserve was quiet so we returned to the screen hide and scanned round, seeing only one Grey Heron, one Marsh Harrier and 7 Swallows. Walking back to the car we heard Cetti's, a Reed and a Sedge Warbler.
We stopped at the ARC again where there were 6 Little Egrets feeding along the edges.

• 
  

just as we were leaving, a young badger popped up and kept us entertained for nearly an hour.














On our way back to the obs we stopped off to look at an earthstar which had gone over but was still identifiable as Collared Earthstar.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Monday

A walk out into the area proved that there hadn't been any significant migration, although there were Whitethroats singing as well as Willow Warblers and a few flutey Blackbirds. We spent some time listening for the Hume's but nothing. Just as we were thinkiong of heading back a call from DW alerted us to a Grasshopper Warbler he had heard singing from somewhere by the southern end of the long pits so we walked up there and stood around but there was only a couple of very short bursts and no sign of movement from a bramble bush.
On the way out we saw 3 Small Coppers and at least 2 Peacocks and 3 Small Tortoiseshells and a Small White along the paths.
Back home a Buzzard flew over and a Sparrowhawk circled round and w had our first Holly Blue Butterfly.

Sunday Walk

The Daffs in the garden are beginning to go over and we are looking forward to the next flush of flowers, especially waft of perfume and the froth of the white wisteria although the buds have been attacked by the sparrows so will have to wait and see.
We decided to go for a walk after lunch to a small Kent Wildlife Trust woodland just along the road which we visit fairly frequently. On the way we saw 5 or 6 Orange-tip enjoying the Hedge Mustard and Greater Stichwort growing in the verges and 4 or 5 Speckled Wood Butterflies as well as a Peacock along the old railway line.

We enjoyed the views across the fields towards St. Mildred's Church and across the wealden fields as we headed towards the woodland.

There was a lot of tit activity in the newly burst oak leaves, several Blackbirds and Song Thrushes were singing and a Buzzard drifted slowly overhead.
As we walked round the wood we heard and saw several Chiffchaffs and at least 4 Blackcaps. A Great Spot Woodpecker started drumming, a gaggle of Canada Geese held a noisy conversation on the old mill pond and a buzzard skimmed the canopy above our heads.
The woodland floor was carpeted with bluebells and their perfume was everywhere as we walked round.

On the walk back we saw 2 swallows zipping round the farm house, it was so warm that I was glad that I wasn't wearing a coat. A very obliging Orange-tip posed for photos as we made our way home.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad