Rain!

After only just complaining about the sunny and dry weather things were about to change and with some rain forecast for the morning of Friday 17th April I decided to put the moth box out in the back yard again with the plan being to get up early in the morning before the forecasted rain arrived. However I overslept, the rain arrived and the moth box was very soggy when I eventually awoke to empty it.

There were a few moths in the trap though despite it being a bit waterlogged - a Garden Carpet, a Common Quaker (a darker toned individual than those previously caught), 2 Tachystola acroxantha and 3 Light Brown Apple Moths along with a faded Double-striped Pug, a Brown House Moth and a pale form of Diamond-back Moth (which I didn't know existed), helpfully ID'd by @UKMoths on Twitter.

 Common Quaker, Back Yard

 Light Brown Apple Moth

 Double-striped Pug

 Brown House Moth

Diamond-back Moth (Pale form) 

With the change in weather I decided to take another walk from home to Saltram, having read that migrating waders will pitch down in wet weather and I was curious to see if anything might have dropped in to the Plym. I also wanted to get out for a walk in the damp air for a change and to smell damp soil and damp vegetation (because I am a bit weird!).

The rain while heavy did pass over quickly and while it remained damp and murky for a while it did clear into another mostly sunny but breezy day. The tides were neap so despite being a few hours away from high tide when I arrived at Laira Bridge there was very little mud on show. I wandered along The Ride and noted a few Shelduck, Little Egrets, Canada Geese and a Grey Heron and eventually heard the delightful whistling of a Whimbrel although I couldn't locate it in the misty conditions. I did find the smart summer plumaged Bar-tailed Godwit from the previous day feeding with Curlews but it was distant out on the mud on the opposite side of the river.

At Blaxton Meadow I found a pair of Wheatear feeding out on the grass and I finally got some decent views for the first time this spring. Even better was a skulky and mobile male Whinchat feeding along the embankment of the meadow, a complete surprise and a bird I wasn't expecting to see this spring.

 Wheatear, Blaxton Meadow

Whinchat

A pair of black and white birds flew up from the estuary and along the embankment of the Meadow before landing again and at first I dismissed them as Shelduck but something about them was off and on checking them out with my binoculars I was very pleased to see they were Avocet, only my second sighting for the Plym.

Avocets, River Plym

With the tide slowly rising the Bar-tailed Godwit arrived to roost on Blaxton Meadow along with 5 Curlew, a Whimbrel and a winter plumaged Black-tailed Godwit. A Greenshank and 6 Redshank were feeding together along the river on the last patches of mud and another 3 Whimbrel were also seen flying downriver while a Swallow chittered over the meadow, presumably the bird I saw yesterday collecting mud.

Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit and Whimbrel, Blaxton Meadow

Black-tailed Godwit and Whimbrel

Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew and Whimbrel

Black-tailed Godwit

Bar-tailed Godwit

Greenshank and Redshank

I walked back through the woods and saw the usual birds - Stock Dove, Ring-necked Parakeet, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Song Thrush, Chiffchaff, Jay, Blackcap, etc. - while a Willow Warbler was heard quietly singing away. I sat awhile on the bench above The Folly while admiring the view over the river and across to Dartmoor and was surprised to see a Swift flying over, I think my earliest ever sighting in the UK, and it was quickly followed by 2 more.

Skylarks were noisily songflighting over the fields and 13 Roe Deer were sitting together chewing the cud but with more rain clouds approaching I decided it was time to walk back home as Ghost Trains continued their empty timetables along The Embankment and Ghost Buses did the same along the roads in these weird times. And before I crossed over Laira Bridge towards Plymouth I had some very nice views of a Whimbrel resting on a pontoon and then feeding on crabs along the tide line, a nice end to my wildlife walk.

Whimbrel

Whimbrel

Whimbrel

Whimbrel

It seems that Saturday 18th April was a good day for passerine migrants moving through but I was stuck at work all day and with another night shift on Sunday 19th April I didn't leave the house all day except to buy a newspaper from Tesco across the road but I did find and ID a micro moth flitting about in the house - a Sulphur Tubic (Esperia sulphurella) and a new moth for me.

Esperia sulphurella