The Old Vicarage and this week plan

Spent the last couple of days at home with the family and planning the next autumn trip. The weather looks good for Corvo mid-week (there are low/mid latitude westerlies ) but despite having my NHS covid travel pass looks like I still need to get PCR tests to travel so by time I've got that I won't arrive until Thursday by which time the weather window will be closed again. Also my travel agent is closed over the weekend (another variable I didn't consider) which means I had to wait until this morning to try and book.  It's been a good week on Corvo HERE with plenty of American migrants with Cape May Warbler the highlight so what with the westerlies continuing now in hindsight it would have been good to have jumped on last week. These long range forecasts are not particularly accurate so in future if I try this again  (weather twitching) probably best to jump on Corvo with any window of westerlies predicted within following five days (and get my PCR tests sorted if this Covid annoyance keeps up- I thought I was covered with my NHS covid travel pass). Not easy this! 

So need a plan B which might be twitching the Long-toed Stint if it's still there tomorrow. 

Autumnal in the garden this morning with Siskins, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Song Thrushes, Blackbirds and Chaffinches migrating over. The noc-mig was surprisingly quiet again- really seems like the birds are either not migrating or are going over high above the noc-mig range. These ebird sonograms came out quite well from Portland showing some sonogram signatures of coming migrants such as Robin, Song Thrush, Blackbird and Redwing HERE. 

14 species of moth in the trap including a few new for years. A nice autumnal mix including Grey and Blair's Shoulder-Knot, Red-green Carpet, Green Brindled Crescent, Barred Sallow, Angle Shades, Common Marbled Carpet, Setaceous Hebrew Character, Large Yellow Underwing, Lunar Underwing. Beaded Chestnut, Black Rustic, Light Emerald and Red-line Quaker.   

Rooting Shank (Thanks Lee Dingain) Also Common Inkcaps popping up over the drive.

Grey Dagger caterpillar. Grey and Dark Dagger moths can't be identified as adults so this is basically a lifer (a confirmed one) as all my other Daggers have been logged as aggregate Grey/Dark. We've kept it in a tank, with some Hawthorn foodplant and so far it has bored into a stick and looks like borrowing in. 

Mottled Umber- winter is coming 

Red-line Quaker

Blair's Shoulder Knot (top) and Grey Shoulder Knot