Rock pooling, mothing and birds

Having my 8 year old nephew visitig for a few days provided a good excuse to go rock pooling, something I never do unless he comes to visit. We spent time rock pooling at Wembury, Cawsand and Bude and managed to find some interesting species.

Cushion Starfish

Long Spined Sea Scorpion

 Shanny

 Hermit Crab

 Prawn

 Strawberry Anemone

 Celtic Sea Slug - Onchidella celtica

Gem Anemone

Our trip to the caravan at Bude also provided some moth sightings in the portable toilet waste block (with the security light on the roof). A straw dot was a new moth for me but flew away before I could get a quick snap of it. However I did see a dead orange swift in a spiders web, a rosy footman, 2 rosy minor and a new micro moth species, Acleris laterana.

 Orange Swift

Acleris laterana

 

Rosy Minor

Rosy Footman

A few butterfly were on the wing including a very smart small tortoiseshell, a butterfly that is no where near as common as it used to be.

Small Tortoiseshell

Garden mothing has been limited but Four spotted footman continue to appear in good numbers and I have seen my first Mullein wave and Old Lady of the year. I also found a tiny micro moth which I think is Coleophora lineolea. Still low numbers of Large Yellow Underwing, it seems they are all at The Weekend Biologists moth trap at Wembury!

Mullein Wave

Old Lady

Coleophora lineolea

And so to birds. While rock pooling at Wembury on the 16th August there was a strong South wind and I managed a brief and distant view of what I think may have been a Coreys shearwater offshore - it had white underparts and brown upperparts with a typical shearwater banking flight and a slow and languid wing action. I only had my small travel Leica binoculars with me and it was distant so we will never know.

Otherwise Bude was productive with 52 black-tailed godwits at Maer Lake, most still in Summer plumage, being a highlight. Also at Maer Lake were 5 dunlin (1 in summer plumage), 3 redshank, a rossting flock of curlew, whimbrel and oystercatcher and my first returning teal amongst the mallards. A late swift flew over with swallows, house martins and sand martins and a juvenile peregrine buzzed the roosting gulls on the cricket pitch causing complete chaos.

The only other bird highlights were Sandwich terns from the Cawsand ferry with a juvenile sat on the sea being fed by and adult, and 2 tawny owls heard calling in the Park behind the house, the first time I have heard them here for some time now.