White flasher

There's no other way to say this, today was rubbish, the weather, the lack of birds or butterflies and the horrible wind, added to that Man Utd. won, it couldn't get much worse! I gave up looking in the end and cut the grass. All the time I was in the garden there were Swallows overhead. I suspect that they were local birds rather than passage birds and the same group seemed to hang round rather than a stream of birds moving through.

The one highlight for me was my first Wheatear of the Autumn, along Reach Road. Most years this is where I see my first one of spring so it was good to see one at this time of year. I was scanning the fields for any other migrants and the white flash of the rump zoomed by, carried along by the wind.

Mothing was so pathetic last night that I decided to miss tonight, there only so many Large Yellow Underwings I want to see, and with so little variety, only 19 species it really isn't worth it. Today most of the newspapers (as opposed to the comics most often sold) are carrying the story that this year has been one of the worst for butterflies in living memory. The second consecutive wet summer with some very bad weather at critical times has had a major effect. The same will apply to moths, the weather has the same affect on them but it is less apparent.