Wednesday 31 August 2011

Persistance doesn't pay off

The Safari opened the moth trap this morning to find over half the catch was Large Yellow Underwings (14), Lesser Yellow Underwing was the only other 'multiple' catch with three. The others included:- Copper Underwing - underwing ID pic to follow, a rather worn Willow Beauty, a spankingly fresh Setaceous Hebrew Character, again pic to follow, Square Spot Rustic, Flounced Rustic - needs pic checking when it appears - and a Riband Wave. Micros included a Crambid for ID later and a tiny dead one, again pic to follow. Four Caddis Flies were also in the trap but all were lively and escaped before the lens got anywhere near them - it looked like there were two species a large one and a smaller one.

Mid-morning we went back to the estuary to see what the tide might bring up. There were a lot of Lapwings on the mudflats, at a very guessy guess well over 1000. Golden Plovers numbered just short of 100 with a few still sporting their black summer underparts. Our side of the river only held a couple of dozen Redshanks but a Greenshank with them was a bonus, the far side had well over 250 but uncounted as they were being pushed about by the rising tide. Five Black Tailed Godwits and a few Curlews were also over there. The only small waders we could find this morning were five Dunlin with the distant Redshanks, again no Curlew Sandpipers!

Several scans through the gulls only gave us two adult Mediterranean Gulls and probably the same two Great Black Backs as yesterday. The Meds were flushed off their sand-bar and landed at the mouth of the creek nearest to us where one started to display and call, just out of range of the camera but with a bit of luck one or two of the shots might be OK...

Where to next? Tomorrow is going to be a plethora of pics for you to work through...

In the meantime let us know what hasn't turned up in your outback yet.

1 comment:

Warren Baker said...

What hasn't turned up in my outback ? Blimey Dave that one long list :-)