Come fly (spider, moth,...) with me,...

One flowering Oregano plant and half an hour playing with a new gizmo for the flashgun produced,...

... four species of hoverfly, including the drone fly Eristalis pertinax,...

... a few greenbottle Lucilia sp.,...

... one tachinid fly Tachina fera,...

... three species of spider, including this female crab spider Xysticus cristatus,...

... and hordes of Small Purple and Gold Pyrausta aurata.

Or, in other words,... there's a tonne of bird food in my garden.

My autumn has begun

Spent a few hours at Goldcliff over this evening's high tide. Highlights meriting the scribble of biro on scrap paper included: two Wigeon, one Marsh Harrier, one Avocet, five or six Little Ringed Plover, 43 Ringed Plover, four Knot, 85 Dunlin, one Ruff, four Snipe, 36 Black-tailed Godwit, four Greenshank, 15+ (probably ++) Yellow Wagtail, two or three Redstart, three Whinchat and eight Wheatear.  

During the quieter moments I counted all 345 members of the Canada Goose flock along with the one 'farmyard goose'/white Greylag-type; and all 236 Black-headed Gulls, amongst which were only three juveniles. 

Yes, at times, it was reasonably quiet. 

Birdfair

Popped up to the Birdfair yesterday.  Quite fun as a social event, bumped into some people I hadn't seen in ages; also managed to cadge a full English breakfast off Conservation Grade, coffee off the World Land Trust, cake and biscuits from REGUA, a CD from The Sound Approach and, best of all, a cracking collection of sound recordings from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  Did wonder about the aim and/or target audience of one, or three, of the talks though.  I also found it difficult to dismiss a nagging feeling that one ill-judged short-cut, through an apparently innocent looking marquee, could lead to one blundering into a League of Gentleman inspired cult of aging Bill Oddie devotees, decked out in nothing but overly pocketed Country Innovation waistcoats and thongs, prostrating themselves at the feet of a huge papier-mâché effigy of Kate Humble. 

Could happen,... could definitely happen.

Sometime last week

Torrential rain on a sunny day.

We will wash it, we will splosh it,...

Harvest Mouse nest attached to Great Willowherb in a jungle of Greater Pond Sedge.  If you put your ear to it, you can hear the distant piping of the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ from somewhere deep within.  

Fun week,... fungi

Spent most of this wonderfully hot and humid week up to my sweat/sunscreen-filled eyeballs in aquatic (and other, largely stingly/prickly) vegetation.  Heard a Kingfisher, found a Harvest Mouse nest and a brood of Tufted Duck, was bitten by horse flies, mosquitoes and red ants, and have had enough of Water Voles for the foreseeable future.  Also had a very showy, bordering on nonchalant, Water Vole during a quick stop at Magor Marsh but little there in the way of bird interest. 

PS. Can anyone identify the fungi in the image below?  Three appeared in a plant pot out front this week, almost certainly a garden tick if someone can put a name to it. 

When they first appeared the colour of the cap was shiny and a sandy-yellow (a little brighter than the tip is here) which bleached over a couple of days to this. This one measured 10 cm from tip to 'root' and could neither speak English nor play the piano.

Let's. Get. Ready. To. CRUMBLE!

Home-grown rhubarb, homemade crumble,... custard on the way.  Yummers!

We went east

The greatest of Knots, partially obscured by a Redshank and phone-scoped from within a rolled up carpet whilst suffering from temporary tunnel vision.  Fusion technology performance art at its very best.  Luckily, before the bird moved onto the mudflats to feed, half decent views had been secured as it repeatedly flitted around in the wader roost amongst the Sea Lavender in the foreground. 

Last week

A week of early starts, ickle ponies, six foot rabbits and countless moist bottoms in the lovely New Forest.  Bagged a couple of long overdue avian year ticks (Eider [in the Solent] and Spotted Flycatcher) and a fair number of new invertebrates for 2014 (e.g. Golden-ringed Dragonfly, Keeled Skimmer, etc., etc.) but the highlight was the quality and variety of the breeding stuff and the accompanying dawn chorus.  It can't be too bad when you're surrounded by oodles of singing/displaying Curlew, Snipe, Woodlark, Redstart, Dartford Warbler, Firecrest, etc., etc.  Did manage to not see Short-toed Eagle or Black Kite though.

Clayhill Bottom. Very moist, if wearing walking boots and gaiters (or 'birding spats' as I like to call them) best crossed at pace whilst being very mindful of your step. "That looks solid,... nope,... that looks solid,... nope,... that looks solid,... nope." [ad infinitum]

A horsey.

Smell the roses

Pottered around the grasslands on Sunday, rounded up a few more Cetti's but little else of note on the ornithological side of things. Plenty of dragon-, damsel- and butterflies though, and a smattering of pwiddy flowers.

A rose by any other name would,... err,... be a misidentified rose.