Portland Mini-trip

Spent the last two nights in the campervan at Portland. Ebird lists HERE and HERE. Bird highlights included good visible migration (hundreds of hirundines, finches, alba wagtails and mipits), a few Balearic Shearwaters off shore, a first-winter Little Gull, first Brambling and Redwing of the autumn, lots of Stonechats, a few Wheatears, Firecrest and hundreds of Med Gulls. I've still got to go through the Noc Mig recordings which I already know include Little Owls singing and calling all night as I went to sleep and woke up listening to them each night. (Been through the recordings now, very little migration just a few Robins, Song Thrush, a couple of Redwings, a Chiffchaff and a single Oystercatcher- really surprising as the diurnal morning migration was full on and also noc-miggers in London reported busy night migration). 

However it was the moths that stole the show. I ran an actinic Heath Trap in a Southwell quarry on the first night and on the camp site (The Pulpit Inn) on the second night. Martin Cade also kindly put out a few trays of moths caught from the observatory traps. It was basically epic. Highlights included Portland specialities Flame Brocade, Beautiful Gothic, Feathered Brindle, Feathered Ranunculus, White-speck and on the migrant front there were Radford's Flame Shoulders (up to 65 in the Portland Obs traps!), Delicates, Pearly Underwings, White Point, Rush Veneer, Rusty-dot Pearls, Turnips, Angle Shades and L-album Wainscots.

Met up with Kojak for the first day who introduced me to a few of the Portland regulars who were great to meet and particularly great to meet Martin- one of my heroes who runs one of the best field centre communities in the country and an excellent blog and social media too which I follow religiously, an endless source of information and inspiration : PORTLAND BLOG. It was great to finally spend a few days birding and mothing there. 

Stonechat (above) and Wheatear (below) 

Just a few of the hundreds of common passerines going over and in the fields 

Med Gulls- we had at least 500 around Ferrybridge 

Flame Brocade

Beautiful Gothic 

Feathered Brindle

Radford's Flame Shoulder (above and two below). There were tens of these in the trays I checked. Really pleased to finally see this rather legendary moth and coincidentally last night Dave Wilton caught the first one for Bucks (SEE HERE- also some information on identification and comparison with Flame Shoulder).I put the trap on tonight at the Old Vic so fingers crossed for a local migrant. 

Feathered Ranunculus (above) and Large Ranunculus (below) 

Delicate - lots of these

L-album Wainscot

Pinion-streaked Snout

Pearly Underwing 

White Speck

Think this is Acrocerops brongniardella (Has a very distinctive red eye) 

The stunning little Cosmopterix pulchrimella

Still working on this one. Closest I can get is something like this HERE (but unlikely) . Epermenia aequidentellus is more likely based on timing and distribution (HERE) (Thanks John Walshe) 

Literally hundreds of moths in the Observatory trays- mainly Lunar Underwings, Black Rustics and Square-spot Rustics peppered with local specialities and migrants 

Theropod dinosaur footprint in the museum geology display. The Jurassic geology sets the back drop to this stunning little bit of the world.   

The moth trap generator also doubles up as a recharging station for the mobile obs- three days off grid with no charging or electricity problems at all.

Church Op Cove 

Portland Bill 

View towards Portland Observatory Lighthouse and Portland Bill over the Top Fields

View of West Cliff

Song Thrush nocturnal flight call. More NFCs HERE