Booby and Bonneli’s

 The last few days have been quite exciting. On Saturday I was at the Obs and I had just checked the Motus box when a crackly message  came over the radio. A second message was Martin shouting that there was a Brown Booby amongst the Gannets Fri. The boats. Mayhem ensued as people flew about,  old ting bags, cameras and car keys. D I’d wasn’t around so I went upstairs and shouted, he emerged from the bathroom, querying why I was shouting! We soon gathered in two cars and drove to the boats. Parking the car and moving rapidly to the boats where a small group had their bins and scopes trained on the bird. A few instructions and we were all watching the bird, albeit quite distant. It started to move west and slowly made its way down channel. Da id kindly let me look his scope while he tried to take some pictures. We watched it disappear, heading towards France.

On Sunday a western Bonnelli’s was found by Tom, one of the volunteers, and on Monday it was still there so I walked out to,try and see it. It was very elusive and I had to give up but early on Tuesday a message came through it had made its way into a net and it would be brought back to the Obs. I rapidly got dressed and drove down to get there just before it was taken back to the trapping area and released.

Blue-winged Grasshopper

 Following various chores during the morning, including collecting a car load of plants from Pam for David’s new garden we decided to drive to a site in Folkestone for the recently arrived Blue-winged grasshopper. We parked on the side road just off the roundabout and walked along the path westwards. We met up with Dylan and Rob, who had seen one near a pylon across the path, that jumped into the grass so we spent a bit of time wandering around, finding a few grasshoppers and eventually, Dylan called us over for one that had hopped up out of the grass onto a bit of fencing. A few more were found by walking through the grass and,as long as they weren’t disturbed, they would sit on the path for a while, allowing some better photographs.

A very successful trip for a new species.

Long-tailed Shrike - Eastleach-Turville 25th July 2026

 25th July

A Long-tailed shrike in Gloucester eventually tempted us out for a day trip. We invited Sean along, David picking him up before driving to me where we changed cars and left around 10.30am and I drove to the site, near Swindon. Because of hold ups on the M25 we took the M3 and then the A332 up to the M4before exiting just before Swindon and heading to the site in the middle of a lot of farm land.

There was a car park system set up, so we parked, paid our £5 and then walked along the road to a path through a stone wall which took us two fields in to where the shrike was being watched by a smallish group, hunting in a bramble bush a hundred meters or so away. The light wasn’t brilliant until I moved back along the wall where the angle seemed better. 

We spent some time watching it and then it was time to return. We followed the Satnav a slightly different route back heading for the M40, where we had around 50 Red Kites, and back to the M25. We stopped at Cobham services for something to eat before making it home, still in daylight. A very pleasant day out.

Catch up.

A couple of recent days out over the last few months. We went up to Yocklets for the orchids on May 16th. We found three Green Fly Orchids plus a few normal ones, plus lots of Twayblades, a few Lady orchids, not as many as usual, and a couple of White Helleborines.

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As usual, we also looked around for insects and other things and found this large weevil, Liparus germanus, a striking creature.

We went back via Crete Road where the orchids were almost over, and the Man orchids were almost non existent, seeing only three.