Quiet Times

The 'eternal' hot and dry conditions are presumably taking their toll with only 61 species in the moth trap last night and a Pagham Harbour count today produced little of interest and pretty low numbers with 75 species of approx 1700 indiviudals (although nearly 1000 of them were Med Gulls) HERE. There has been a surprise drop in most species of waders- maybe the saltmarsh is baking hard during the low tide periods? Ferry Pool is almost dry and Breach Pool is just a puddle too. Mill Lane Marsh is also drying out fast. 

There were 2 Great Egrets, the Glossy Ibis and 4 Spotted Redshanks on the Breach Pool first thing but everything had dispersed by 8am. As usual all the local news here: Selsey Birding Blog

Gareth J from Ebird has recently created a hotspot group around the Pagham Harbour Area hotspot resulting in a consolidation of all the scattered data from the various local hotspots. The bar chart data for the year is now pretty accurate HERE with some good trends shown in the associated graphs. A couple of examples below. Great idea Gareth! 

Fortunately we are off to Scotland tomorrow so hopefully something more interesting to report on this blog soon (although seems like we are heading into wild fires and cold temperatures in the Cairngorms!)

Willow Warbler- three or four around today on my travels. Certainly on the move now with up to 50 at Portland recently. 

Adult Yellow-legged Gull with Cormorant 

Med Gulls- about 950 roosting out on the islands before high tide

Curlew was one of the few waders that have increased in the harbour recently with 77 counted today. 

A surprise drop in Dunlin numbers after up to 160 a couple of weeks ago. Peak numbers are clearly mid winter with an apparant Spring passage (presumably birds wintering further south) , a mid summer dissappearance and then the auutmn migration. 

Bar-tailed Godwits have also dropped off after an early July presence- presumably early returning adults and non-breeding birds. Birds generally do not winter in Pagham Harbour but there was a good spring passage this year (and early spring and then a late spring movement of presumably birds from different populations) followed by a dissppearance and an autumn movement and now another drop in numbers. 

Small Rufous was about the most unusual thing in the moth trap. No movement on the moth numbers recently , still on 699 all time and 488 for the year. It's a bit boring at the moment so quite happy to be heading off tomorrow. 

Arundel WWT Day Trip

The heatwave continues with temperatures in the late 20 degrees today. The moth traps were surprisingly very quiet with low numbers of individuals and species. The few migrants included another Bordered Straw, a couple of Vestals, a few Rush Veneers, single Rusty-dot and a few Turnips. Oak Eggar and Garden Tiger was the best of the rest. 

I spent the morning doing a bit of work with Holly  on the Little Oak Tree and Garden Care website and google presence HERE as we seem to have dropped down on google search, so we did some SEO work.

In the afternoon we took the kids to Arundel WWT HERE. The water levels were surprisingly high with little wader habitat. Birding highlights were a couple of Peregrine, a Red Kite and a juvenile Shoveler. The most interesting thing was the odonata and a bit of pond dipping. 

Comma in the garden today. Also 3-4 Small Whites, Red Admiral, Speckled Wood and Holly Blue but no Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers etc. 

Another cracking Bordered Straw but still no sign of it's Eastern cousin. The 700th species of garden moth slot is still open for the take. 

Willow Emerald at Arundel

Small Red-eyes at Arundel. Also had a few Black-tailed Skimmers, Emperor, Brown Hawker, Common Bluetail and Common/Azure Blue Damselfly. Also had Common Darter back home in the garden. 

According to the I-nat AI this is Black Mining Bee - a new species for the garden if correct. Latest on the garden pan-species HERE

The Arundel WWT pond dipping produced Lesser and Greater Water Boatmen. Dragonfly nymhs, Pond mites, Leeches etc. Must do some pond dipping in our own garden pond to see what has now established after two years. 

The fourth wave

It's back up to nearly 30 C today and across the country even higher temperatures. I've been working in London yesterday and stuck in the office again today but there has been some migrant activity in the moth trap to provide some interest. 

There was also a Willow Warbler, surprisngly singing, in the garden this morning- my first of the autumn. 

Seems like these dry and sunny conditions have been going on too long becuase there doesn't seem to be many butterflies or other insects in the garden and there was probably only 100 or so individual moths of 40-50 species last night across three traps. Maybe it's the lull between summer and autumn insect populations? Another factor is the full moon and clear skies so probably a few things at play. 

The front garden pond is becoming an increasingly busy drinking spot for the local birds. 

Small Marbled- always nice to see. The proportion of migrant moths is quite high. 

Cosmopolitan- a new for year

Another two Silver-spotted Veneers over the last couple of days. Now five records this year, unrecorded previous to this year here. 

Fleabane Pearl- another NFY

Black-tailed Skimmer- a new for garden. Also had lots of water beetles in the traps last night so presumably drought movements

We grew artichokes this year and had one for dinner tonight (with tomatoes and potatoes from the garden too followed by blackberry, elderberry and rhurbard crumble also from the garden) 

Common Shrew and a glimpse of a Hedgehog. There's also Wood Mice in the log sheds and Short-tailed Field Voles in the meadow.. and Brown Rats by the ducks which are not so welcome 

Goshawk Pagham Harbour

Another Monday and another day in the field. I contemplated going to twitch the Long-tailed Shrike but the thought of five hours in the car put me off. I've already seen 13 Long-tailed Shrikes this year when in Thailand and seen many in Asia before but I do need it for my Western Palearctic list but I still couldn't muster up the energy.  If it's still there on Thursday there's a chance I might meet up with mates to twitch it which will be more fun. 

Anyway so I decided to do the usual rounds locally. I only had the morning becuase once Holly and the kids found out I wasn't going twitching I was roped in for afternoon activities. So I set out early and ahead of the high tide checked out Mill Lane and Ferry and then over to East side for the rising tide. I met the North wall crew over there and then Andrew arrived too but between all of us we couldn't find anything too exciting. The juvenile Spoonbill which arrived a few days ago was still around, as were the 3 Spotted Redshanks, there was a Yellow Wagtail in the saltmarsh but surprisingly fewer waders than earlier in the autumn HERE. 84 species of over 1500 individuals. 

I decided to go to Pagham Spit to check out any high tide roosting birds there and the others guy went back. I wasn't expecting too much and indeed there were only a few Ringed Plover and Dunlin on the gravel islands but there were very large numbers of Med Gulls (about 750) and an adult and two juv Little Terns still. I started walking back beginning to think I should have gone twitching and also contemplating the relatively low rewards with local birding over the last many weeks which I'd also discussed with Andrew. Apart from the Ring-necked Parakeet (!) I hadn't seen any local scarcities or rarities since mid-June. 

Then suddenly all the Med Gulls and Sandwich Terns roosting on the spit islands went up calling loudly which started spreading to the harbour too. I suspected a raptor maybe a Peregrine and then caught sight of an accipter only a few tens of meters away and relatively low too. A quick look in the bins and something wasn't right so I quickly went for the camera and started firing off shots and through the lens could just about make out streaks on the breast. I followed the bird as it went low over the harbour putting everything up, causing a massive commotion. A quick check of the photos confirmed what I was suspecting- a juvenile Goshawk. It wasn't a massive bird so presumably a juvenile male. I put the news out and then saw it again heading towards Norton and then updated the news but lost it after that. It seemed to fly off over Norton towards Selsey. 

Apparantely only the 2nd record of Goshawk this century for the Peninsula so a good Peninsula tick and unlike Long-tailed Shrike also a world year tick, now on 904 HERE. 'Dare-to-be-dull' and staying local paid off again. 

Juvenile Goshawk (all images above)

Juvenile Spoonbill and Whimbrel

Adult moulting Spotted Redshank

Black-tailed Godwits and Redshanks- Redshank was the only wader today that have increased in number

Another Striped Hawkmoth last night . Also another smart Clouded Buff, Bordered Straw, 3 Vestals and a Palpita vitrealis. 

Colin Pratt says this is White-line Snout which will be a lifer (obsidentify says a Pinion-streaked). Now on 485 for the garden year and 699 for all time. Fingers crossed for an Eastern Bordered Straw for moth number 700. 

More moth mig

The alarm went off at the usual 5am today and I was shocked to notice it still seemed dark. For the first time in literally weeks and weeks it was overcast and at around 830am there was actually a very brief period of very light rain. Unfortunately no respite for the thirsty and dry land locally but there has been some rain regionally and importantly some rain in the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands where a national emergency was declared recently due to wildfires. We are heading there on our summer holidays next week so this is good news for us as they were evacuating villages near to where we are planning on staying.

National emergencies have been declared, due to wildlfires, in France and Spain and actually near to where we went on holiday in France this time last year. We actually booked Scotland this year as mitigation for weather risk because it always seems a gamble booking a summer holiday in southern Europe now due to the risk of oppressive heat and wildfires (I almost dipped Blue Chaffinch in Gran Canaria due to wildfires too during the summer holidays). 

There's always a call during these situations for someone to do something about the climate emergency but I think as most people agree, the ability to make long term plans or mitigate for future risk is not possible in our governing systems. A liberal democracy with a four year rolling political system can only make short term plans and react to emergencies. Nobody is going to vote for compulsory responsible consumption and travel and no corporate lobbyists are going to lobby poltiicains for redistribution of wealth, the reconnection of people to nature and a more eco-social blueprint to governing systems. 

Sadly we are on this ride to the bitter end- escalating climate chaos, a deepening ecological crisis and the fundamental collapse of our economic systems. It's either blindingly obvious that we are in the midst of this or just willful blindness. 

Anyway the 'upside' of the climate emergency is the great moth trapping and studying (and getting inspired by) how our co-inhabitants of this planet are adapting to climate change and the insects are certainly on the march northwards and dispersing in these conditions. The highlight in the light traps last night among 92 species were four Striped Hawkmoths and six NFYs in total. There was also another Light Crimson Underwing. So its not all bad news! 

Striped Hawkmoth- usually a denizen of the desert and southern Europe. According to the Portland blog these fresh individuals could be locally south coast bred individuals. 

A well marked Gypsy Moth- not all our insect colonisers are welcome, In 1995 the government tried to eradicate this potential pest but have since given up. 

I'm getting to the stage where I'm not posting photos of former mega migrants (such as Ni-moths and Bordered Straws etc) but I can't bring myself not to post this bad photo of our third Light Crimson Underwing which a few weeks ago was on top of the wish list

Marbled Green- a new for year

Saltmarsh Knothorn- a first for year

Clay Triple-lines- another NFY

Black-dot Stilt, Caloptilia populetoreum- NFY

Before family summer holiday proceedings, which today included going to church and then to the theme park rollercoastering (above) I popped into Mill Lane marsh to see if any waders had dropped in with the frontal conditons- 2 Green Sandpiper, 2 Common Sandpiper, 1 Snipe and 12 Teal was all I could muster up

Last couple of days

I've been sneaking out into the field  over the last couple of days to help cope with the summer holidays. I was up early yesterday morning for the high tide roost at East Side HERE and was back home by 10am for family proceedings (Shopping and then Kath's party- Indy cooked Sri Lankan Rice and Curry so a more than tolerable social occasion). Highlights on East side was basically nothing but a nice selection of 78 spcies of over 1000 individuals. 

The moth trap was pretty poor in the morning too, the highlight being a Palpita vitrealis, so overall quite a lot of effort for not much reward on both the bird and moth front. I bumped into Andrew and he concurred that there's not a lot of change over at the moment and especially quiet off the Bill. Even though we are not in a heatwave the dry and mid-20 degree high pressure conditons have persisted for the last couple of weeks, the only recent change being a shift to a westerly breeze from the persistent north-easterly. So overall rather slow and steady migration.  

The highlight of the day was a flock of 21 very noisy Sandwich Terns flying over the garden yesterday evening. Presumably migrating off from the harbour. Up to three Common Terns are also still flying around. Seem to be a few Swifts moving through too and there were over 70 Barn Swallows last night and also been getting Sand Martins coming in late too. 

I was up around 5am again this morning and processed a more interesting moth trap with 115 species of about 250 individuals from only two traps. Highlight was a cracking Clouded Buff. 

I then only had until 9am before having to be back at home so I did Ferry and Mill lane. 67 species of about 500 indiviudals (not including distant birds in the harbour in the strong light and heat haze) HERE. No real highlights apart from a new Shelduck family, a couple of young Stonechats on Ferry field, more warblers now in the bushes/reeds, Coal Tit again at Mill Lane and a Yellow Wagtail over. 

The local Cattle Egrets are usually in the North Wall area and are surprisingly infrequent on the west side so the 25+ today in the Ferry field area were a bit of a surrpise

The Shelduck and Oystercatcher family on Ferry are coming along well (above and below)

Only three juvenile Avocets now left on Ferry (and a couple of Adults) which is drying out fast. The Little Ringed Plovers are now gone (Andrew had one early on).

A lone Lapwing on Ferry and about 18 or so out in the main channel- not much in the way of post breeding dispersal build up yet

Plenty of Reed and Sedge Warblers and Whitethroats around Mill Lane and Blackcaps calling (and one still singing a bit) around Ferry. Also a few Chiffs. Beginning to get that autumn feel.

Juvenile Stonechats on Ferry- presumably a locally bred family (Medmerry?). According to the main Ebird data the first record in Pagham Harbour since April HERE

Clouded Buff- stunner! Moth 698 for the garden and 479 for the year. 

Ni-moth - the 5th this year

Vestal- two today but only the fourth or so this year. Also had the year's 4th Silver-spotted Veneer- only recorded for the first time this year. 

Oak Eggar- a much appreciated first for the year

Still nice and colourful in the garden despite the local drought- still a few butterflies (not as many as earlier in summer). The lavender at night is attracting around 8 or so Silver Y and a couple of Dewick's Plusia and still attracting Hummingbird Hawkmoth by day. Seems like less insects on the umbellifers in the back garden now- maybe things winding down.