Little Oak Lodge Weekend

As usual it's been a weekend of family trips (Reindeers and Pet Shops this time) and hanging around the house and the garden. The garden vis mig is now a few drips but there has been a bit of interest with waders presumably moving between Chichester and Pagham Harbour with over 450 Golden Plover and 150 Lapwing going over today. The highlight of the morning garden watches was a Coal Tit this morning putting the garden bird list on 95. 43 species in or from the garden yesterday HERE.

Despite it getting down to about 5 C at night, it was quite cloudy so I put the moth traps on and made sure I put the actinic on as that light spectrum can be better for moths in the winter. Sure enough the actinic out performed the MV and I actually had a couple of first for the gardens despite my low expectations.

Golden Plovers (above) and Lapwings (below) going over the garden. The garden clearly seems like a flight line between the harbours as I've had a nice little selection of waders and ducks going over now.

Italian Bark Moth, Metalampra italica- a very unseasonal new for garden. 

I'm going for Blastobasis vittata- if correct will be a NFG and a lifer I think. 181124 update- confirmed at correct (Thanks Derek). Garden moth list now on 406. No migrants on Saturday morning but this morning there were several Rusty-dots , an Angle Shades, Diamond-backed and a Pale Mottled Willow. 

December moth- only the third one so far this winter. Also had Mottled Umber this weekend. 

Coal Tit calling - best call is at approx 10 seconds. Sounds like a Ring-necked Parakeet at the end but I didn't notice it at the time (I'm programmed to ignore them since living in London). Could be something from Kyle's aviary though. I saw a parakeet flying over the garden a couple of weeks ago but couldn't confirm it as Ring-necked and not an escape so will keep my eyes open as there has been one around the Peninsula. 

With winter approaching there will be more time to work on our mini-zoo and the pets and animals that live with us at Little Oak Lodge. In our old house we had 100 species in our mini-zoo and mini-farm  HERE but during the move we had to scale down (as we had to rent somewhere for six months too) so we rehoused and gave a lot away. Today we visited Ridgeway Exoctics in Lee-on-the-Solent which seem to be best exotic animal retailer in the area. Just window shopping today but we did get a few more plants to fill out the gaps in the female Panther Chameleon terrarium (above). Looking forward to getting more animals over this winter. Would be great to get captive bred animals which are of conservation concern to do our bit for protecting species.