Stuart's Wildlife Diary: Warming Up

The weather has finally realised that it is summer and has subsequently begun to warm up a little and with sunny skies and temperatures predicted to reach 25c by the end of the week it's nice to get the old legs out of trousers and into shorts at last.

Monday 13th June was grey and cloudy on waking up but with a forecast for sunny spells later in the day I spent the morning pottering about before heading off for a Plym/Saltram walk. It did indeed brighten up as the afternoon progressed and it became quite warm too, ideal for a bit of invertebrate watching.

There were plenty of butterflies about in the sunshine with my first Marbled White and Ringlet of the year on the wing along with Meadow Brown, Large Skipper, Small Heath and Common Blue.

Marbled White

Ringlet

Small Heath

Cinnabar Moth, Bloodvein and Six-spot Burnet were also new for the year and plenty of Burnet Companion were flitting about too.

Cinnabar Moth

Bloodvein

Burnet Companion

Bee Orchid and Southern Marsh Orchid were still in flower and I was pleased to find my first Pyramidal Orchids of the year.

Bee Orchid

Southern Marsh Orchid

Pyramidal Orchid

Bird wise it was quiet as expected with the highlights being 4 Raven circling overhead, presumably a family group, a single Sparrowhawk also overhead, singing Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Skylark, a very striking looking male Bullfinch feeding on Buddlea seeds, a Shag on a buoy in the river at Laira Bridge and around 25 Swift feeding over the trees with around 10 House Martin and a single Swallow.

Tuesday 14th June was warm and sunny on waking up in the morning and with yet another night shift looming that evening I headed out to Wembury for a walk. It was very pleasant but became very hot in the sunshine and I was glad to return home and get into the shade for a cool down.

Bird wise it was quiet again with the highlights being a flyover Grey Heron along the coast heading west, a very smart looking adult summer plumaged Mediterranean Gull roosting on the rocks with 2 1st summer Black-headed Gulls, 2 Shelduck on the rocks at The Point again, a Red-legged Partridge in the horse field again and the usual showy and singing Whitethroats.

There were lots of insects about in the heat with 2 male Beautiful Demoiselle, 2 male Azure Damselflies, Large Skipper, Meadow Brown, Common Blue and Small Tortoiseshell all seen.

Beautiful Demoiselle

Azure Damselfly

On the bare and sandy cliff top at The Point there were 2 Green-eyed Flower Bees buzzing about in the warmth of the sun, a new species of Bee for me at Wembury.

Green-eyed Flower Bee

Friday 17th June duly arrived and it was as hot as forecasted. I decided to head off to Horrabridge to look for Fritillaries following sighting reports on Twitter and when I arrived on site at around 9:40 it was already hot and quite humid with very little breeze.

Within 10 minutes of arriving I found a large Fritillary species floating around the bracken but it didn't settle and soon disappeared from view. With further searching I found a Large Skipper, a Red Admiral, Speckled Woods, Meadow Browns and Brimstones and had a brief view of another very faded large Fritillary species disappearing into the bracken.

Golden-ringed Dragonfly, 2 female Beautiful Demoiselle, Siskin, Buzzard, Bullfinch, Goldcrest and Long-tailed Tit were all seen with Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Willow Warbler and a Green Woodpecker all heard.

I returned to the spot I had first seen the Fritillary and stood in the shade to cool down and while scanning the nearby vegetation I refound the Fritillary flitting about all over the place. Eventually it rested briefly on the bracken and I was able to ID it as a Dark Green Fritillary.

Dark Green Fritillary

"Arty" shot of a bleached out Dark Green Fritillary in the strong sunlight

Another Fritillary appeared and eventually up to 5 were seen but all were active and mobile until eventually another one settled on the vegetation and on checking it out it was a High Brown Fritillary.

High Brown Fritillary

I had a look for Silver-washed Fritillary in the spot I saw one last year but with no luck although I did find another High Brown Fritillary nectaring on bramble flowers before it dashed off.

It was unpleasantly hot by now and so I headed off home on the 12:15 bus and very glad to get into the cool shade of the house I was after a very enjoyable if sticky walk.

That evening I had arranged to meet my mate Mavis on Roborough Down for a Nightjar walk. We meet up at 19:45 and had a slow ramble across the Down, enjoying the cooling breeze and beautiful views in the fading sunlight. Skylark, Willow Warbler, Song Thrush and Chaffinch were singing away and we had some lovely views of Linnets, Stonechats and Yellowhammers.

It was very quiet on the Nightjar front but eventually at around 21:45 we heard our first churring and eventually had some excellent views of a male perched up in a dead tree and floating around over the gorse wing-clapping and "guicking" away. The white wing and tail markings were very noticeable despite the gloomy light and the buoyant flight was unreal to watch as the Nightjar appeared to "bounce" over the vegetation.

Another male was heard churring nearby and at one point we had 3 birds flying around together, one was our showy churring male and the other two were unsexed birds.

We left at around 22:15 when the light had pretty much gone but we could still hear a male churring away as we got into the car, all in all a very magical experience.

With the hot weather I had the moth box out in the back yard that night and managed to catch a nice selection of moths including Coronet, Mullein Wave and my first ever back yard Elephant Hawk Moth.