Good Old Winchester Hill

Good Old Winchester Hill

Old Winchester has got to be one of my favourite nature reserves in Britain, because of it's brilliant views and also stunning range of wildlife that can be found there. It is arguably the best sight in Britain to watch butterflies, solely because of the range of specialist wildflower that grow on the chalk downland slopes, providing excellent feeding for specialist butterflies.

The butterfly I was looking for when I went down there the other day was Chalkhill Blue, and as the name suggests, its favoured habitat is chalk hillside.

The weather wasn't brilliant as we left, with grey clouds and rain overhead. Hopefully though, the bad weather would break up as we reached the south downs (area of hills)... obviously, it didn't, and we arrived to find many of the butterflies sheltering on grass stems, especially the smaller, weaker flying species like Small Skipper...

Some of the stronger fliers, such as the stunning Marbled White, braved the windy weather, and happily fed and perched out in the open...

As mentioned earlier, the reason butterflies flourish here is because of the specialist wildflowers that grow on the chalk slopes, including Common Agrimony, the footplant of Grizzled Skipper, abundant on the hillside in late spring...

The yellow flowers below are Lady's Bedstraw...

... Apparently, they can be used to cure the smell of stinking feet; I'm starting to regret not pickin- errm... anyway, here's a nice Ringlet that was resting on the path...

Up on the Celtic hill fort, it was evident that Yellowhammers were breeding, with adults carrying caterpillars into the surrounding shrubland...

Back to the task in hand, and slowly but surely the weather began to improve, with the odd bit of sunshine coming through. By this time though, we were reaching the end of the walk with no Chalkhill Blue to boot. Suddenly, a glance over the left revealed a blue butterfly... but was it a Chalkhill?

It finally came down to land on a bramble and bingo, those chequered patterns to the wings identify Chalkhill from all other British Blues...

It performed for another 10 minutes but was far out in the brambles, and I had shorts on, so common sense told me not to go prancing into the brambles!

... Success, I think so!

Small Copper

Small Copper

I seem to have abandoned Bushy Park recently, even though it provides great opportunities for photography and is only a short cycle from the house. Butterflies seem to be everywhere at the moment and with only one photo of Small Copper in the archive, a colourful but common species, I headed down to Bushy Park where the butterflies would be reaching their peak.

The park is made up mainly of grassland and ferns, and it's clearings like this that are ideal for butterflies, with wildflowers such as daisies making easy pickings for them...

In this particular clearing, Small Skippers were also abundant, and it didn't take long for me to find a Small Copper as it patrolled its territory. They are very territorial and this male would intercept any insect, including Small Skipper incase it was a passing male, or even better, a female.

They are very active little butterflies, and I could only get close enough for a photograph when the male sat on a vantage point (i.e. fern, grass stem) across his territory...

Or in this case, a leaf...

Meadow Pipit...

After a while, the sun's heat became a bit too much and I decided to call it a day, a bit unsatisfied with the result.

Doesn't Get Much Better Than That

Doesn't Get Much Better Than That...

Remember that time when luck was just on your side... everything was going right... nothing was going wrong? No, neither do I; but I got pretty damn close last week, during a few nights stay at the grandparents house in Suffolk.

Being the absolute donker I am, I managed to leave my camera kit at home. In a nutshell...

"Right, time to do some photography. Hmm... I wonder where my camera is? I'm sure I packe- damn!"

This mean't that for the first three days I couldn't take any photographs at all; none at all; zilch; nil; zero, and I was literally crying myself to sleep at night. Anyway, on the fourth day I had my baby back safe with me via a pretty useless courier.

Before the trip, we'd been given a tip off as to where we could see Nightjar, one of those birds that most birders dream about, at Blaxhall Common by the coast. It was a healthy distance from where I was staying, so to make it a day trip we set out to RSPB Minsmere, and with camera in hand, I was hoping for some photos.

By the entrance feeders, this female Chaffinch was having a bit of a shocker with her plumage. I mean that style is sooo last year...

The reserve is dominated by reedbed, and Sedge and Reed Warbler were in full song. Occasionally the odd Sedge Warbler would pop up, albeit distant...

Down along the beach, I failed to pinpoint any Little Terns, but we did get distant and brief glances of a Grey Seal out in the sea. Believe me, it is a seal...

Back down on the wader scrape, much of the water was dried up, but a small pool had been adopted by a family of Avocets...

The juveniles, note the hint of a greyish brown tinge to the plumage...

Despite the young birds large size, the adults were still very protective, and were constantly chasing away nearby Black-headed Gulls...

The gull then decided to take his revenge. Getting ready to give the Avocet a good old slap...

With the sun low in the sky, we decided to head off to our next and last location of the day, Blaxhall Common, in the hope of finding Nightjar. The conditions couldn't have been better with a warm temperature and no wind. The sunset...

A clearing in a woodland were the Nightjars were located...

As the sun went down, I was amazed to hear a Dartford Warbler singing and briefly showing in the gloom, but it was too dark to get a shot.

Then, right on queue at 9.30pm, we heard a churring noise in the distance... Nightjar! Another churring noise started in a tree to the left and it soon became apparent that there were at least two males calling. From then on until 11pm, the Nightjars churred non-stop and flew right over our heads on several occasions. It was too dark for an acceptable photo but we did record a video with churring in...

At 11pm, the noise started to die down and eventually stop, although it was starting to freak me out.

On the final day, we took a brief trip to Lackford Lakes SWT before I took the train back to London.

With the amount of luck we'd already had with the Nightjars and the seal, we decided to try our luck in the Reed Hide, famous for Kingfisher sightings. After a painstaking and ass-breaking 5 minutes of sitting still in the hide, a little blue bird came and sat in full view on the wooden post designated especially for it...

So there you go, two of my personal best wildlife experiences in two days. I think it's safe to say that it doesn't get much better than that. I'll leave you with a little ickle bunny wabbit, just chilling out. I definitly feel like a sit down after this post.

The Winning Streak Continues

The Winning Streak Continues...

Actually, that title is pretty debatable. The winning streak actually started and finished about a week ago, but Mr BT Home Hub and the laptop haven't been getting on recently and so Mr Home Hub decided to muck up laptop's internet connection, stopping me from posting this earlier in the week when it actually happened... if you follow my strings. Luckily though, I got them to apologise to each other and the internet is now back to normal.

Anyway, the winning streak refers to Hawk-moths, and only the night after catching the Elephant Hawk-moth, I caught the garden's second species of Hawk-moth, the Lime Hawk-moth.

Not quite as pretty, but still a very smart looking guy...

Enjoy. I'll try not to bore you with moths too often, except when I get a really good one, I'll save most things moth related for this blog... worth a peek if you like what you see here.

Ever Caught A Pink Elephant?

Ever Caught A Pink Elephant?

... I have, it was in the moth trap last night. No, it wasn't a real elephant, that would be a bit weird, and it wasn't a drug either... it was a brilliant Elephant Hawk-moth and I'm still physically shaking from the experience.

It all started when I came back from a gig and decide to put out the trap for a while. I wasn't expecting much as it was late. After 20 minutes, I heard 'the thud' that as any moth trapper will tell you, means that you need to run-to-the-trap-as-quickly-as-possible-because-you-have-something-big-on-your-hands.

With small container at the ready, the ones you put pee samples in (don't ask how I got them), I ran to the trap... and there it was.

You don't need to know my first thoughts because they included some bad words, but my second though was "I'm gonna need a bigger container", so I rushed back into the kitchen, came out with a large sandwich box and potted the moth, knowing I wouldn't get any sleep thinking about photographing the thing in the morning.

Morning came and I woke up at the bloody early time of 11am, instead of late afternoon... the things I'd do for a flippin' moth! I stuck it on a leaf and here is the finished result...

That is one stupidly beautiful moth.

Look at that thorax. Get a load of that trailing edge to the hindwing. Don't even get me started on the leading edge and that mouth watering basal cross-line. Kill me now please...

And if you thought that was all, think again. I also caught a Leopard Moth, another exotic looking moth that I'd ask out any day... if I was a moth...

And if your not already on the phone buying a heavy duty moth trap, then this should make you. A Blotched Emerald in all its blotched beauty. One of two which I also caught last night...

I'd just like to say that this is actually what these moths look like, so colour enhancing or stuff like that. Now if these moths don't rock your boat, flip your haystack or ruffle your feathers, then I don't know what will!

Fledgling Fotos

Fledgling Fotos...

Just a few more photos of the local freshly fledgled Blue tits...

The feeding station, currently being refilled every two or three days- the greedy bastards.

Note the yellowish tinge to the plumage and undefined blue cap- all of which distinguishes this little guy from his old man and woman...

And changing the topic slightly, a Woodpigeon posed in front of the camera...

And I couldn't resist putting up this shot of an absolute stunner of a moth that I netted a couple of nights ago... it's called an Old Lady and is one of the moths that I've always wanted to see...

The end of the GCSEs are coming ever closer and apart from partying all summer, I'm also hoping to take a few trips further afield in search of some particular butterflies and birds. Last year I almost achieved a personal goal of seeing all the Skipper butterflies in the UK, with the exception of Chequered and Silver-spotted.

This year I'm hoping for such beauties as Purple Emperor, White Admiral and any Fritillary species (a family which totally eluded me last year! Heres hoping for good weather throughout the summer- watch this space!

Fat Greedy Little Birds

Fat Greedy Little Birds...

It's good to see that the Blue tits nesting in next doors nestbox have fledged 4 healthy looking little balls of fluff. I put out a big block of fat for them and they seem to be attracted to it like magnets. At this age, the fledglings need to eat as much as they can, and ironically, they benefit from eating the fast food junk that would give our heart a run for it's money! 

Like all new generations with sense, we like to give ourselves as little work to do as possible by making mum and dad do everything.

This is no different in the world of the Blue tit, and the adults were constantly bringing fat to the young, who were using up as little energy as possible through movement by perching, thus increasing the amount of biomass that could be converted into growth... If you didn't get a word I just said, don't worry- it seems that revising for GCSE Biology has left it's mark!

The fattest Blue tit I think I've ever seen...

I'm beginning to get afraid that it might have eaten it's younger, weaker siblings...

All this taking care of the young, both in and out of the nestbox, really takes its toll on the adults plumage condition... and during late summer and early autumn, both adults and young birds will undergo a moult in which they shed their worn breeding feathers, and change it instead for something a little less glamourous (in the case of the males) and a bit more clean.

I bet our Blue tits can't wait until the breeding seasons over looking at the state of one of the adults plumage last week!

However, it's not just the Blue tits that are bringing their young to the garden feeders. A family of Coal tits nested somewhere in the neighbourhood, and have also become frequent visitors to the seeds and fat that I put out.

Juveline Coal tit...

Due to being lower down the pecking order than Blue tits, the Coal tits had to patiently wait their turn, which could be quite a long time thanks to the fat fledgling (3 photos up) demanding seemingly endless amounts of food.

It seemed like there was only one adult Coal tit feeding the young...

However, the fledglings are quick learners and soon got the hang of... well... hanging on.

Another welcome surprise of this breeding season is a fantastic male Great-Spotted Woodpecker (identifiable from the female by the presence of a red patch on the back of the head) that has been visiting the garden over the last week and flying off with food to an unknown location somewhere across the road, presumably to feed it's young.

I attempted to get a close shot of the bird by setting myself up close to the feeders using the same method as in this post. As usual it failed, and being the secretive birds Woodpeckers are, flew off the second it landed- sensed a new object in the garden that wasn't there before.

I guess you'll just have to make do with this long shot...

Right now back to revising for Maths GCSE tomorrow. Algebraic quadratic simultaneous equations, reciprocals, vectors?!... I've got no chance.

Wish me luck!

Fluffy Moths

Fluffy Moths...

When it comes to fluffy moths, I can't get enough of them. You know the ones... little balls of fluff that would probably make the best pillows in the world. With the mild weather over the last few weeks, I've been catching plenty of 'em in my state of the art trapping gizmo... although some people call it a plank of wood with a bulb down the middle...

Probably the fluffiest moth I've ever caught... the Pale Tussock. Basically a piece of fluff with wings.

Another fluffy moth... the White Ermine (sorry about the unsightly fingers)...

Not so fluffy, but still very pretty... the Maiden's Blush...

Again, not as fluffy, but there is something about the Treble Lines that really makes it so eyecatching. It's so simple, but yet so beautiful.

This moth trapping thing really is addictive. You never know what might appear... it's like Christmas morning, every morning!

For more on moths and mothing in Surrey, have a look at the Surrey Moths & Butterflies Blog, which I set up last month.