National No-moth Night

Last night was National Moth Night. For anyone not familiar with the arcane world of moths and mothing, this is an annual event which is supposed to provide a 'snapshot' of the moths occurring throughout the country on whatever date is set (it changes from year to year). It goes without saying that whichever night is chosen, the weather will inevitably be poor, and last night was no exception, being clear and cold. Any sensible moths will have been down the pub, or tucked up in bed with a good book, depending on their age.

I had the good sense not to go out mothing anywhere, but I did at least run my two garden traps (one 80W mercury vapour and one 11W actinic for anyone who cares about such things). I wasn't expecting much, and had it not been NMN I probably wouldn't have bothered at all, but I certainly wasn't expecting a zero catch, which is what greeted me this morning when I went to inspect the traps. I don't recall ever catching nothing on a night in May, which just shows how poor this spring has been so far for insects.

Hope it warms up a bit for next Saturday's White-faced Darter trip to Chartley Moss....

Redstart and Gypo goslings

Second time Egyptian Geese have bred at Harrold - maybe these ones will survive - these must be a few days old.
A surprise find at Radwell. Although this bird was singing, it is clearly a passage migrant and my first singing Bedfordshire Redstart since the early 1990s.

Temminck's Stint

Temminck's Stint, Quest Pit, 15th May 2010.

Cuckoo

At Willington.

The T word

Spurred on mainly by the Drunkbirder’s gripping photos and account of the Oriental Pratincole showing down to a few millimetres earlier in the week, I took the momentous decision this morning to end my nine year twitching celibacy, and headed for Frampton Marsh. I’m not quite sure why – some sort of lame mid-life crisis perhaps. Or maybe I just fancied a day out somewhere different but not too far away, with a high probability of seeing a very rare bird. And I like pratincoles, despite the fact that they don’t seem to like me.

On arriving at the reserve I began to wonder whether this had been such a good idea after all – the car park was completely full, and I had to park on the verge outside the visitor centre. And this for a bird which had already been present for a week! Or maybe all RSPB reserves are like that these days – Titchwell certainly is. But at least (being the tight part-Scottish bastard that I am) I didn’t have to pay to park or buy a permit. And the bird was apparently still present, which was a relief given my long history of dipping on pratincoles.

As I entered the hide my doubts increased further – it was standing room only, and mostly dudes who didn’t have a clue what they were looking at (but again, this is more likely just the norm at RSPB reserves rather than an indictment of 21st century twitching). Eventually I managed to work my way to the front of the hide and quickly got onto the pratincole, which was flying around over the meadow at the back of the scrape. And that’s where it stayed, never coming anywhere near close enough to get even a record shot. But the scope views were perfectly adequate.

Also on view from the hide were a couple of summer plumaged Curlew Sandpipers and two 1st-summer Little Gulls, and a drake Garganey from the Reedbed hide. John had assured me that I couldn’t fail to get good views of the ‘quite tame’ Corn Buntings here as well, which sounded promising as I haven’t seen one for about ten years. However, I only saw two, one in flight and one perched on a bush about half a mile away.

But what a superb reserve Frampton Marsh is. Definitely worth a visit again when there are fewer people around. This panorama shows about a third of the reserve, and was taken from the sea wall behind the East hide (6 shots with the Sigma 150-500 on 150mm, ‘photomerged’ in Photoshop). The pratincole was somewhere to the left of this view (click for larger image):

I had further, slightly closer scope views of the bird from this bank, before heading back to the car for some lunch, accompanied by a ‘grandstand’ view of the visitor centre’s septic tank being emptied. That bloke's just taking the piss, I thought....

Dunlin

Dunlin, Broom GP, 12th May 2010. A few more shots can be found here.

Nightingale video