Four of the best

There have been a few moths in the last day or so, that I've photographed, here are four of my favourites.

Northern Rustic (Standfussiana lucernea)

There are only a few records of this moth in Kent each year and this is my fifth in three years.

Black Arches ( Lymantria monacha )

I only get one or two of this beautiful moth each year. The pattern is extraordinary, quite "William Morris" rather than Tony Morris. It has a "local" designation, and is often associated with oak woodland.

Bordered Straw ( Heliothis peltigera )

After the fantastic year of 2006, when I caught 22 Bordered Straws, there was one in 2007 and none in 2008. Although most of my records have been earlier than Aug 7th, there is still time for a few more of this migrant this year.

Scorched Carpet (Ligdia adustata)

Another locally distributed moth, it is quite widespread in the south of England. It wouldn't sit still anywhere that I wanted it to, but once it landed on the garden safari number notice that I had still go on my desk, it sat quite happily on it while I took its picture. It isn't common in the garden, I caught two in 2004 and this is the second this year.

Don't put money on my Hunches

Sometimes following your instincts pays off, you get a feeling that there going to be a good bird at such and such, so you go there and low and behold something unexpected.

More often though, you get there and it is exactly what you knew would be there. So it was tonight at the Restharrow Scrape. The only difference was that one of the birds that had flashed across my wish list had indeed appeared in Kent this very evening and a text message on my phone let me know I was in the wrong place, "Marsh Sand at Bough Beech" it read. Here the Sandpiper was quite definitely a Green Sandpiper.

It wasn't calling while it did this, so I assume it was bringing up some sort of pellet. I've always liked pictures with reflections in the water, whether they're birds, buildings or people, it seems to give depth to a two dimensional screen.

There were at least five Little Ringed Plovers around and these were joined by two Dunlins, one still with the black belly of its summer plumage.

There were very few ducks around, so when I got desperate enough I took a look at this one feeding just up the pool from us. Once it got its head out of the water I was good to see it was a Garganey. I'm not great on aging these but I think it is a young male, but I suppose it could be a juvenile of either sex. In fact my lone companion in the hide told me that the birds had stretched its wings earlier to reveal a large grey patch on each wing. I think that an adult or juvenile female would have a more brownish speculum.

The good, the bad and the reverse sweep.

Pam's got a little vegetable patch going and she is producing some nice fresh greens. Every day she's been looking through the leaves and eliminating any butterfly eggs, or so she thought.

Yesterday we found some more Large White eggs and alas, some large white caterpillars as well.

Annulet (Charissa obscurata)

I had a bit of a lie in this morning, so it was about seven a.m when I started on my moth traps. It wasn't fantastic, but there was a new species for the garden, an Annulet. This moth likes coastal areas and its main food plant is Heather, but it does use other herbaceous plants as well.

Conobathra tumidana

The family of pyralid moths may not seem as exciting as the Hawk-moths but in their own way these are just as fascinating. I don't find them easy to identify but this small moth, about 1 cm long, has a nice row of raised scales to help identify it.

Once I'd finished the moths and had breakfast I checked the Cricket score at Canterbury and saw that Middlesex were in a sorry way. After sorting a few other things out I decided to go along to spend the afternoon watching Kent murder their bowling. After all they are bottom of the table and we are top. But it didn't work out that way.

After a while in the sun I sought refuge in the members stand, where this House Martins nest was active. There weren't in and out very often, I guess they may be on a second clutch of eggs.

Darren Stevens nudges this round the corner to reach his 50. Unfortunately but this time we'd already lost eight wickets, and only a good stand with Simon Cook had allowed Stevens to reach 50.

This very ugly reverse sweep led to Stevens being last one out, caught behind off his glove.

You could say that this juvenile Herring Gull came into the ugly category, but I think he was expressing the crowds boredom as Middlesex had scored at less than 2 an over for the first 10 overs of their second innings.

Mum came down to join in, and may have had the desired affect when young Compton was brilliantly caught by Geriant Jones. At the close they were 50-1. I bet the KCCC hope that the two teams will bat a bit better in the second innings. With it being the Canterbury Cricket Week I'm sure a two day finish would be pretty expensive. The good news is that the umpires think that the 21 wickets (including four run-outs) were due to bat batting and won't be reporting the wicket.

Autumnal feeling

A good start to the day with this beautiful Pine Hawk-moth.

Pine Hawk-moth (Hyloicus pinastri)

Although this is quite a common moth around the county they seem to be scarcer in East Kent. This seemed to be very fresh, perhaps it had come up from the Pine Gardens.

I had a walk out at Grove Ferry this afternoon. There was nothing special but this young Marsh Harrier quartered the reeds close by.

Autumn passage was very evident with at least 25 Green Sandpipers around.

Family parties of Sedge Warblers were croaking in the reedy margins. It's worth checking as another visit from an Aquatic Warbler would be very welcome.

Black-tailed Skimmers could be seen over the marsh and on the way out to the Harrison Hide I watched several coming down to rest on the path.

I don't know if they are warming up on the stones warmed up by the strong sunshine, or just playing some territorial game.

As I walked back to the car park a Turtle Dove was gently purring, a reminder that there is still some summer to come.

Pump up the Wings

A warm afternoon with plenty of butterflies on the wing. Overhead the sky seemed to be full of Swallows and a few Willow Warblers were calling from the hedges and in Farm Wood. A Little Owl stared at me from the pine tree behind the barn, almost as if it was confident that it was well enough hidden to make it useless to photograph.

While I was watching the Gatekeepers I noticed that some were crinkly like the one above,

and some were smooth like this one. I can only think that the wrinklies, far from being OAP's have only recently emerged and haven't finished pumping up their wings and drying them out.

There were several second brood Wall Butterflies. These often perch on the ground. As a youngster I remember them as a common garden butterfly in the road I lived in Bexleyheath, and we would often find resting on the pavement in the sunshine.

Of course like all the other butterflies they were also visitng the thistle flowers.

Large Skippers seem to be numerous at the moment.

Whi9le there around it is difficult to resist yet another picture of this years star performer, Painted Lady. I did see one Small Tortoiseshell in the garden today, and one at St Margaret's Farm, Whitfield yesterday, so they may yet make a revival.

Mothing A few moths last night.the best being a beautiful Lunar Thorn, which can be seen here on my Mothing Blog.

Bunnies

I had hoped to get some photos of the Little Owls that are around Bockhill Farm. Several times recently I've heard one being mobbed in Farm Wood but I've never managed to get in a position to get a picture before it's either moved on or buried itself in the ivy. Recently Gerald got a nice series of shots and I hoped that I would be cooperative for me. It wasn't when I hoped it would be but when I got to the hedge at the back of the Freedown I could hear the tell tale calls and scoldings that means small birds are mobbing an Owl.

I didn't managed to see anything other that the briefest glimpse of a Little Owl slipping round the corner. There were two or three Rabbits that had ventured out into the field of flax, and most of the time I could only see the ears. This one stood up to look round, as if to say "when the hell am I" but didn't seem to be over worried by the camera.

Hopefully the stubble fields will attract some migrants now that things are beginning to move, I might even get the chance to increase the number of species I've phtoes sitting on bales of straw.

Proper Cricket but no pyjamas

After a sorting out my moths (a good number this morning) and a quick look round I decided to have a look at Kent playing Derbyshre, in a more traditional form of the game. Gone were they pyjamas, and back were the cricket whites.


Kent had a terrible morning loosing five wickets for about 85 runs, Justin Kemp being out on the stroke of lunch. Kents perilous position didn't prevent the crowd enjoying the break.

I don't think the Essex police were interested in the Cricket, and it couldn't be me they were looking for, I paid that speeding fine ages ago, honest!

Tredwell and McLaren put on 58 after lunch before Mc Laren became Graham Wags fourth victim. Parnells' wicket gave him five but it needed a spectacular catch by ex-Kent "laonee" Stephan Jones to do it for him. Then upto tea Tredders and Cook put on a unbeaten 48.

Despite his reputation as being a bit of a stodgy batsman James Tredwell played some handsome strokes and was 67 not out at Tea. The tea and cakes were so good they failed to take the field after the interval.
Of the moths I caught his morning ths Gold Spot was the most spectacular.