Hatley moths, August

Square-spotted Clay

Bordered Pug

The Olive

Maiden's Blush

Small Blood-vein

Red Underwing

Orange Swift

Square-spot Rustic

Flame Shoulder

Setaceous Hebrew Character

More Red-backed Shrike photos

More Red-backed Shrike photos - these are from Jim Gurney. Biggleswade Common, 31st August 2010.

Red Backed Shrike.

More images on my Blog. http://backinbirdland.blogspot.com

MVCP Access Track

Scaup(ish...?) duck, Whinchat & Snipe all near the MVCP access track this afternoon. Photographs by Martin Green.

Red-backed Shrike

Well found Steve !

A few more images can be found here

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike, Biggleswade Common, 28th August 2010. Nice find by Steve Heath. Another shot can be found here.

Red-backed Shrike - Biggleswade Common

A great find by Steve Heath and I think the first twitchable one since the one about half a mile further north in 1996. Looks like an adult female .

Willington.

Willow Warblers feeding all over the place, at least 5 Green Sandpipers and a Greenshank.

Hybrid Goose

Hybrid Goose sp, Broom GP, 24th August 2010.

Wood Sand

Wood Sandpiper, Broom GP, 23rd August 2010.

Cuckoo at Willington

Taken from the river close to the Lock at Willington. Not sure if this is a female or a first year bird. Either way, a pleasant surprise this late in the season.

Black-necked Grebes

Black-necked Grebes, Harrold & Odell CP, 15th August 2010. Not a bad reward for doing Richard Bashfords WeBS count for him!

Wheatear

Wheatear, Rookery, 14th August 2010.

Blackwit and Garganey

Black-tailed Godwit, Garganey, and Green Sandpiper, Derek Whites Eggs pit, 13th August 2010.

Possible Baltic Gull

Possible Baltic Gull/probable intermedius Lesser Black-backed Gull, Broom GP, 11th August 2010. More on this bird here.

Cambridge, 9 August

The fifth Mullein Wave Scopula marginepunctata for the garden last night, using a 35W white circle-line bulb on the trap.

pete
CB1 3ST
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ38

Just for a laugh...

A couple of record shots (taken with the 200mm lens I use for butterflies) of the two Marsh Harriers on the deck together in Rookery.....and one of the birds in flight, the darker one, a very dark, even chocolate brown and with immaculate tail and flight feathers, so presumably a juvenile female (as it was the same size as the other bird which had faded plumage and displaced tail feathers, so presumably an adult female)

Wheatear

This young bird was at Grovebury this afternoon

Broom roost

Broom GP gull roost, 5th August 2010. Around 2000 birds were there this evening.

Whatever happened to Swithland Res?

Inspired by the BUBO Listing badge which recently appeared on John's blog, I decided to join the site and add a couple of my lists. There are only two lists I care about these days - my British self-found list and my Leicestershire list, so those were the ones I added.

Two things struck me as I was entering the records for these: firstly, that I haven't added anything to my found list for about two years, and secondly, how many good county birds I first saw at Swithland Res.

When I started birding, Swithland was my main local patch, and I used to spend a lot of time there, often with Jeff Higgott and/or Steve Close. Like all the best inland local patches, most of the time it was crap. I have notebooks full of records of exceptionally dull visits in the 1980s and 90s which make me wonder why I spent so much time there. The answer, of course, is that every now and then it would be worthwhile. A quick skim through my county list reveals the following species I county ticked at Swithland: Long-tailed Duck, Red-throated Diver, Red-necked Grebe, Shag, Bittern, Red-necked and Grey Phalaropes, Arctic Skua, Great Skua, Ring-billed Gull, Iceland and Glaucous Gulls, White-winged Black Tern, Sandwich Tern, Crag Martin, Red-rumped Swallow, Rock Pipit, Firecrest and Hooded Crow. And that's just the ones that were county ticks; there were plenty of other good birds that I'd previously seen elsewhere.

And what has Swithland had in the last few years? Lesser Scaup and Leach's Petrel in 2006, and, er, can't think of anything else off the top of my head. And the reason is because it doesn't get the coverage it used to 20 years ago. I hardly ever go there now I live on the other side of the city, and Rutland Water and Eyebrook Res are easier to get to. Yes, people do look at Swithland, but I don't think anyone spends the amount of time there that we used to. An opportunity waiting for someone to rediscover how good it can be?

P.S. Corn Bunting isn't really the most recent species I've added to my found list - I just did it in checklist order.

Hatley moths, 25 July-1 August

Scorched Carpet

Buff Ermine

Canary-shouldered Thorn

Shaded Broad-bar

Small Scallop

Oak Hook-tip

Yellow Shell