Manx Shearwaters - New for Wembury, 11th August 2012

Today is the tail end of a short hot spell so I headed out to Wembury on the bus for a walk to try out my new travel tripod with my new telescope. I have also treated myself to the 27x wide angled eye-piece and wanted to put it through its paces. The tripod is great - light, compact and it fits in my ruck sack but it is fiddley to use and is not as smooth or easy as the heavier tripod. It also blew over in the strong South East breeze when I stopped to look through my binoculars (whoops!) but overall I am very pleased with it. The eye-piece is very good too, being wide angled it is more comfortable to look through with my glasses and provides a great image.

Having my telescope with me today provided views of a new bird for me for Wembury - Manx shearwaters. With the strong breeze I managed to pick out small groups of 1 to 3 birds moving West offshore at regular intervals doing their usual banking shearwater flight and moving surprisingly fast. They had the distinctive white undersides when they banked in the wind contrasting with their dark upperparts but I couldn't pick out any Balearics amongst them. It was nice to finally see a new bird for my Wembury list although I have never really looked for them at Wembury before.

Other birds seen were :- a juvenile sparrowhawk flying overhead being mobbed by swallows and pied wagtails ; 15 mallard around the sewage pipe (1 female, 1 male and 13 eclipse males) ; 2 whimbrel, 2 summer plumaged dunlin, a juvenile ringed plover, a curlew and oystercatchers roosting at Wembury Point : 4 juvenile wheatear ; a juvenile whitethroat ; a great spotted woodpecker flying between trees in gardens in the village as the bus drove past ; a pair of cirl buntings ; and a kestrel.



Male Cirl Bunting

Insects seen included a short winged cone head (a new species for me) and a dark bush cricket. A small copper, speckled wood, small white, gatekeeper, meadow brown and a comma were struggling to fly in the strong breeze and a silver y was disturbed from the grass.

 Short Winged Cone Head

Dark Bush Cricket

Some scrots had set a fire in the toilet block using the toilet paper but there was only minimal damage and I found a marbled green, 2 small fan footed waves, a dead single dotted wave (from smoke inhalation?) and a lesser yellow underwing. I also saw what I think was a flame carpet before it flew out of the doorway and out of sight, it would have been a new moth for me if I had gotten a good view of it.

With the sunny weather I spent a few hours in the sunshine synthesising vitamin D while sitting on Plymouth Hoe admiring the stunning views on Thursday afternoon and enjoyed views of a winter plumaged Mediterranean gull flying by, a noisey adult and a noisier juvenile Sandwich tern fishing, a juvenile whitethroat feasting on some blackberries, a Jersy tiger moth and common blue butterflys.

I have also had the moth box out in the back yard a few times and have had 2 new garden moths - a very dead and dessicated peppered moth in a spiders web and a common footman. I've also had a Jersey tiger moth and at least 4 male and 3 female four spotted footman amongst more usual fare although I have as yet not had the large numbers of large yellow underwings that I usually have at this time of year.

 Peppered Moth

 Common Footman

Male and female Four Spotted Footmen



A small milestone - my 100th Macro Moth species for the Backyard

A small milestone for my small, innercity backyard - my 100th macro moth species! It was a kind of anti-climax as I had reached my 100th species without realising it. The small fan-footed wave I caught on the 25th July was the 100th species but I only realised this when I finally managed to ID a few days ago a pug I caught in the back yard on the 9th July as a grey pug (with the help of the experts on the Backgarden Moth Forum). I am still amazed at reaching 100 species considering my location in the centre of Plymouth although I am fortunate to have a small park at the back of the house full of old deciduous trees which helps.

My Backyard

Grey Pug

Another nice moth I have recently had in the moth trap was a female four-spotted footman, my first of the year and a very pretty moth which is quite docile and easy to handle.

Female Four Spotted Footman

The hot weather finally broke but not before I had a walk along the coast at Stoke Point. It was sunny but breezey at the start of the walk but had clouded over by the time I headed home and when I got back to Plymouth it had started to rain. The walk was as usual very enjoyable, with the best birds being a very smart and yellow juvenile willow warbler and a juvenile wheatear. 5 ravens flew along the cliffs honking and tumbling together, presumably a pair with 3 well grown young. Yellowhammers and cirl buntings were seen and heard and a green woodpecker yaffled away in woods near Noss Mayo.

Male Yellowhammer

Butterflies were on the wing despite the breeze with small copper, common blue, meadow brown and gatekeepers seeming to be everywhere. A nice wall brown was seen and I managed to get a decent photo of the very beautifully marked underwings.

Wall Brown

Autumn squill was flowering in the area where I saw it last year but with more flowers showing than last year.

Autumn Squill

The only other wildlife news is that there are a pair of noisey juvenile herring gulls on the rooftops at the back of the house, I don't think they are my birds from the chimney stack but another brood from another rooftop nest in the area.

A busy few weeks coming up with work and family visits so limited wildlife watching opportunities but as Summer School Holiday Hell is in full swing I will be content to see what new moths I can find in the moth trap in the backyard if the weather is good.