Week round up

It was mainly a week of family stuff and work with a two day trip to Hampshire (to Paulton's Park), a work day with Matt around the lodge on Thursday and in London working on Friday. 

Therefore natural history highlights have been restricted to the garden and moth traps and on Thursday I took Jacob to a Young Explorers session with the Pagham Harbour RSPB team. 

So in addition to the Starwort which was indeed the star of the week, other highlights included the first Convolvolus Hawkmoth for the year, a Tree Pipit over this morning, a Reed Warbler in the garden for a couple of days, up to 12 Yellow Wagtails around the estate and getting in the Cow field opposite and the continuing welcome presence of autumn gathering hirundines. It's mainly Barn Swallows again now after the influx of Sand Martins seem to have moved on. There were still up to 3 Swifts around too. Garden bird log from 20th August HERE with 37 species of over 300 individuals. The corvid roost on Keynor wood is building with over 100 Rooks and 50 Jackdaws counted on the roost flight. 

Despite the quiet week, the all time garden moth list increased by 12 species from 706 to 718 and the year list by 18 from 511 to 529 thanks to the great work of Mike Bailey processing the June and July retained moths. Will post more details seperately on that as a few local scarcities. 

There's been some steady birding elsewhere on the Peninsula this week with Redstart, Whinchat and Spotted Flycatchers and an Osprey and Glossy Ibis in the harbour. As always, all the local birding news on the excellent local blog HERE. 

Convolvolus Hawkmoth- always stunning 

Another Small Marbled this week. The temperatures got down to 12 C last night and the moth trap was dominated by migrants, mianly Rush Veneers and Small Mottled Willows. The moth diversity has literally dropped off a cliff since the cooler conditions arrived. 

Yellow Belle have had a good year here, presently daily for the last few weeks and also getting in the meadow during the day. Vestals are also having a good time with up to 7 recently, also getting in the garden meadow. 

New rabbits!

The biggest news of the week was some decent rain and cloud. We had relatively heavy frontal rain on Wednesday and some good showers on Thursday. 

The RPSB event was great, with a bit of pond dipping, bug hunting and we also found a dead Mole