Scotland Road Trip Days Two to Four

Catching up with the blog as it's raining hard outside here at Invernahavon Camp Site near Newtonmore in the Cairngorms National Park. There's still a heatwave back down south (it was near 30 C yesterday back home) but its around 17 C max here during the day with overcast skies and rain. It is a bit of a relief from the constant heat and blue skies this summer but if it's too wet here it could scupper our plans for the week. Fortunately the nearby wild fire is under control. 

So we arrived at our cabin yesterday (3rd August) afternoon after the drive north. On Sunday (2nd) we left my sister's house around 9am and following a few coffee stops arrived at Stirling in the evening. It was quite a horrific travel day of motorways, service stations and then a night at the Stirling city centre Travelodge. After the kids were settled I took a short walk along the River Forth but the public footpath was a hang out for the local 'yout'. 

The following morning we took the kids to Blair Drummond Safari Park near Stirling before completing another 2 hour drive north to arrive at the our campsite for the week. 

Today we spent at the Newtonmore Folk Museum with haggis for lunch at the Newtonmore Diner (a Trucker's stop). I had two moth traps on last night outside the cabin in rather damp conditions but had an interesting haul with several lifers.   

Antler moth (above and below). The most numerous moth in the trap.

Lempke's Gold spot. A lifer. The blunt ended dorsal apical wedge and the rounded white patches are the main features from Gold Spot. A lifer.

Female Anamolous- incredible moth, the name is spot on

Plain Clay

Suspected- lifer

Triple-spotted Clay- lifer

Beech-green Carpet- lifer

Dotted Clay according to Obsidentify- lots of variable Clays which Obsidentify say are all Dotted but some could be Ingrailed? 

Dotted Carpet- lifer

Dusky Brocade

Minor Shoulder Knot- a cracking specimen 

Golden Rod Pug- lifer

Juniper Pug- lifer

Stirling Castle and surround (below) 

Jacob at the Newtonemore Folk Museum

Our base for five nights- Invernahavon Camp Site 

Scotland Road Trip Day One - Long-tailed Shrike

We set off on our journey north today, heading to the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands. Our first stop was planned to be Worcester to visit my sister Angela and family. When I put the route into the sat nav I noticed it took us right past the Long-tailed Shrike site so after a bit of bribery we stopped off there. With three impatient travel companions I didn't have long but luckily the bird was obliging. My 14th Long-tailed Shrike this year after a trip to Thailand earlier on in the year but my first for the Western Palearctic so pleased that I finally got to see it after a lot of proscrastination. 

I've packed the Lepiled and Heath trap for our trip but had the traps out last night for another attempt at trying to catch an Eastern Bordered Straw- again no luck on filling that 700 slot for the garden moth list but a nice couple of Striped Hawkmoths again.

If all goes to plan we should get as far as Stirling by tomorrow evening. Taking a nice slow stroll up there and back. 

First-summer Long-tailed Shrike. Eastleach Martin, Gloucestershire/Oxfordshire border 

Striped Hawkmoths

The crew 

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.