A frustrating morning saw me on our nearby high point, raptor watching in what should have been ideal conditions, clear, breezy, warming southerlies. Nobody told the raptors though and it was a blank apart from a couple of resident Common Buzzards and Sparrowhawks, plus a migrant Sand Martin. Even more frustrating was a falcon seen briefly which may have been a very early Hobby.
Moths are picking up nicely with record numbers for the garden 6th/7th of Clouded Drab (8), Small Quaker (10) and Common Quaker (32) plus our latest Dotted Border and earliest (by two weeks) Nut-tree Tussock. It’s a crazy spring!
8th
Cley was better than of late with a few Swallows and Sand Martins moving west in the beautiful breezy, sunny day, three Wheatears on the Eye Field, a few Sandwich Terns along the beach and plenty of Marsh Harrier activity. Water levels are high though, which may bode well for waders late spring. Both Peacock and Small Tortoiseshells were on the wing. The highlight of the day had to wait a day or two to be confirmed when a trip round a couple of websites confirmed the small finch that flew west past the centre after lunch was a Serin. I thought it was, having seen a yellow rump and given its size but the short trilling flight call wasn't the mass of jingling I was used to from Portugal etc.
There was plenty of wasp activity round the ivy in the garden when I got home and fair numbers of moths in the trap, with another late Dotted Border and our first Red Chestnut, Engrailed and Twenty-plume moth of the year, plus our second Diurnea fagella – thanks to Jon Clifton for the i/d. No sign of the frog spawn hatching yet.
Diurnea fagella and Common Wasp
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