Since flying the nest/roof Birdy continues to occassionally return to be fed, mostly early morning, ie, dawn, with lots of fuss and noise. Interestingly when putting out my moth box in the back yard in the late evening on July 24th one of the adult birds launched itself off the chimney stack and repeatedly mobbed me despite Birdy being nowhere in sight - there is a lot of noise and posturing going on amongst the colony of herring gulls on the nearby roofs, presumably asserting possession of sites before the winter, so I guess it was just pumped up with bird adrenaline.
I finally dusted off the moth box and placed it out in the backyard for the first time this year on Wednesday 24th July and with the recent hot and humid and settled weather I hoped for some good moths but I was a little disappointed the next morning. The best moth was a marbled green, one of my garden favourites, and it was nice to find a lychnis, 4 male four-spotted footman, 3 knot grass and a shuttle-shaped dart amongst others but I had expected more.
Marbled Green
Lychnis
Knot Grass
Thursday 25th July was hot and sunny and so we headed off to Cawsands on the ferry from The Barbican for our first beach day of the year. The sun was blazing down when we left Plymouth on the earlier 10:30am ferry but by the time we reached Cawsands the sea mist had rolled in and it was dank and cool and eerie. We had a cuppa in a cafe before carrying on to the beach at Sandways and the sun reappeared along the walk so I was able to do my usual Big Butterfly Count - 2 comma, a red admiral, 10 peacock, a small copper, 2 meadow brown, 4 small white and 1 large white were all recorded but there were no silver-washed fritillaries seen this year.
From the beach a lone gannet was seen flying close in to shore and there were variously plumaged adult Mediterranean gulls roosting on the rocks with herring gulls and black-headed gulls while chiffchaffs called in the cliffside vegetation. Unfortunately the sea mist did eventually return at around 4pm but just as we were packing up for the walk to Cremyll through Mount Edgecumbe Park to catch the ferry back to Plymouth.
On the walk to Cremyll I added gatekeeper to the days butterfly list and saw 2 6-spot burnet moths, my first of the year, but I didn't find any purple hairstreaks or silver-washed fritillaries, not helped by the continuing sea mist. Annoyingly by the time we reached Cremyll the sea mist had cleared again and the sun was shining but at Cremyll I did see a very smart adult Mediterranean gull flying around the jetty and 3 Sandwich terns fishing offshore including a very noisy fledgling being occassionally fed by one of the adults.
Gatekeeper, Mount Edgecumbe Park
Friday 26th July and we drove up to Dartmoor for a cream tea at Badgers Holt, figuring that it would be cooler on the Moor and indeed it was - 22.5c in Plymouth and 17.5c at Badgers Holt. The tea room has been taken over by new owners and nicely refurbished but they only do the scone wedges with a cream tea for 4 people so we had to make do with a single large scone each but it was still very tasty.
After stuffing our faces we had a waddle down the river through the Dart Valley Woods and a goosander, mandarin duck, mallard, grey wagtails, a fledgling nuthatch and a marsh tit were all seen with redpolls heard cha-cha-cha-ing overhead.
Beautiful demoiselle were flitting about by the river and along with meadow brown, gatekeeper and a peacock I saw a few fritillaries - a very worn high-brown fritillary briefly nectaring on brambles before dashing off and a few silver-washed fritillaries which were very active and regularly disappeared up into the trees except for a very worn individual which I managed to get a few photos of.
Beautiful Demoiselle, Dart Valley
Beautiful Demoiselle
Silver-washed Fritillary
Gatekeeper
High-brown Fritillary
High-brown Fritillary
I kept an eye out on the tops of the oak trees and eventually found some purple hairstreaks fidgeting about in an oak right next to the rocks in the river where we usually stop and sit for a while - 3 were seen together but there must have been more present although viewing was difficult amongst the leaves and activity always stopped when the sun disappeared behind the occasional clouds drifting over.
Purple Hairstreak, Dart Valley
Purple Hairstreak
Purple Hairstreak
Purple Hairstreak
Saturday 27th July and I headed off to Wembury on the bus on another sunny and hot day and despite being a weekend and summer holiday hell time it wasn't too busy.
A rusty dot pearl was the only moth found in the toilet block and the only other moth seen on the walk was a shaded broad-bar disturbed from the pathside vegetation.
Shaded Broad-bar, Wembury
Butterflies were flitting about and I was pleased to see my first Wembury wall of 2019 but there weren't the usual numbers of butterflies around for the time of year considering the good weather with only 2 male common blue, 2 small copper, a few meadow browns, red admirals, speckled woods and gatekeepers, a green-veined white, a few small whites and large whites and a peacock seen.
Red Admiral, Wembury
Bird wise it was fairly quiet with a few gannet and Mediterranean gull offshore and at The Point 2 whimbrel were roosting on the high tide with 5 curlew, 4 little egret and 33 Oystercatcher - summer is already slipping into autumn. Even more autumnal was a juvenile whinchat, a complete surprise, and busily feeding along the wire fence by the wheat field before flying off to the sewage farm hedge. I managed to refind it on the walk back still in the hedge where it was regularly chased off by a male stonechat.
Juvenile Whinchat, Wembury
Whinchat
Cirl buntings were seen and heard with chiffchaffs and whitethroats seen skulking in the bushes and hedges but the only other birds of note were a female pheasent, stonechats and a juvenile cormorant being fed by an adult along the shoreline.
A nice find were 2 male beautiful demoiselle by the footbridge over the stream in the valley to the beach, some good views of them here for a change as in the past they have always flitted off out of sight very quickly after first being seen.
Beautiful Demoiselle, Wembury
David duly arrived and we enjoyed a pasty and a coffee on the beach before driving home via Plympton to have a quick look around the annual fuschia show at Harewood House, a nice end to a nice few days of local July wildlife.
