Thursday 25 October 2012

More Autumn moths

I put some pictures up of typical Autumn moths a few days ago. Here's a couple more, that I caught last night, basically keeping to the some colour theme.

Yellow-line Quaker

The Brick

The two below are migrants, and presumably will be rather out of their comfort zone when the forecast icy blast at the end of the week replaces the rather mild air stream we've had so far this week.

The Gem (male)


Dark Sword-grass


Birding

I had a long walk around Bockhill Farm and the cliff top this morning. It was pleasant but in all honesty not very productive. The stubble field that held the two Woodlarks on Saturday has now been ploughed. I did come across one Ring Ouzel at Gun site (Big Bruce) and I heard one Chiffchaff at the farm wood. Vis Mig (visible migration) was much slower than of late but there were a few small parties of Goldfinches, Chaffinches and Redpolls moving through.One group of 27 Siskins called noisily as they move north and there were at least two Reed Buntings, one of which landed briefly on a small hawthorn, but didn't wait for a picture. At least seven Pied Wagtails called their characteristic "chiswick, chiswick" overhead. I've noticed a bit of an influx of Pied Wagtails in the village, I saw six on various roofs the other day., . There were also about 20 Swallows flying around the cliffs near the cafe. A Woodlark flew low over the monument calling and may have landed somewhere on the Leas. In Paddock a there were a few thrushes, I noted  2 Mistle Thrushes, five plus Songs Thrushes, seven Redwings, half a dozen Blackbirds and one Fieldfare flying out of one hedge. Moving round the big field there was a flock of around 250 Starlings and I also saw four Jay moving along the trees at the site of the Freedown.Jays. Along the Droveway a small flock of Crests in the sycamores  included at least one Firecrest.

2 comments:

Adam Hartley (Gnome) said...

Hi Tony,
I'm enjoying the blog. I'm no expert when it comes to moths but isn't your first moth a Yellow-line Quaker rather than a Red-line?

Adam

Tony Morris said...

Hi Andy,
yes, and that's what I recorded it as (see my mothing blog). I'd been looking at the pictures of both in Sean Clancy's new book and managed to mix the names. It was mid-night.