Sunday 18 August 2013

Promising results so far

The Safari opened the moth trap to find it rather empty. 
Nine Large Yellow Underwings made up half the catch, below are the best of the rest.
The light in the black


  
An Acleris sp but which one?
Flame Shoulder
Shuttle Shaped Dart
Silver Y
Square Spot Rustic     
After a quick cuppa we headed to Chat Alley where the sea was rough and we were glad of the shelter by the service door of the public loo...we're saying no more!
A good few Gannets went by, at least 50 although some could have doubled back as they were going both ways.
It took a while before the first Manx Shearwaters turned up but when they did they put on a bit of a cruising spectacle. In the distance a flock of impossible to count Common Scoters defied the weather, possibly between 250 and 500 of them.
Bird of the session was an Arctic Skua that came in from out by the wind farms and then lingered a few minutes close off shore giving stunning views; we'd have swapped it for a Great Skua though as we've still not caught up with one of those yet this year.
After a proper job bacon butty for breakfast we took Frank and our new caamera to the North Blackpool Pond Trail.
Frank is feeling much fitter now he's lost a few pounds and had a good old sniff around.
In no particular order here's a few of the pics we took.
Common Carder Bee on Cornflower
Common Darter
Corn Cockle
Lucilia on Corn Chamomile
Lucilia on Corn Marigold
The meadows have been mown - unfortunately the 'hay' is unlikely to be taken away
One of the large flock of House Sparrows
A Hoverfly on Corn Marigold
Another Hoverfly
The new pond - gonna be a beaut! Generations of children should enjoy pond dipping in here for years to come
Small Copper - about 25 feet away!
Speckled Wood - much closer!
Not bad for starters - whadda yer reckon? We should improve a bit as we find out where they've hidden all the functions we were familiar with on our previous camera.
Where to next? Looking forward to an early Patch 2 watch tomorrow and then we've got a group exploring our much smaller pond than the one above.
In the meantime let us know who's been digging in your outback.


2 comments:

Warren Baker said...

Well I reckon the photo's are much better now Davyman, but oh! for a pond like that on my patch!

cliff said...

Shame the old camera didn't make it Dave but the new one's looking good already - plus it's always nice to get some new kit.

The 2nd Bee on the cornflower is very impressive. Shots 2 & 4 of the Darter are also very good.