Goodbye to the Old Vicarage

Sadly this is our last week at the Old Vicarage. The garden bird list ends on 97 species here with highlights including breeding Spotted Flycatchers, Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Tawny Owls and Coal Tits and we could hear the local Curlews singing from the garden too. Garden rarities included Hawfinch, Merlin, Kingfisher, Reed Bunting, Shelduck with the noc-mig picking up Common Scoters, Whimbrel, Snipe, Oystercatcher, Common Sandpiper, Wigeon, Teal and Gadwall. 

However it was the incredible abundance and diversity of the garden moths that were the main feature of the Old Vic with over 10,000 records of 633 species recorded mainly in the last two to three years (since the move from the Beddington Obs). Highlights included the first Vagrant China-mark, Diasmiopsis ramburialis for Bucks and other county megas including Vagrant Piercer, Cydia amplana,  Mugwort Pearl, Loxostege sticticalis and good inland migrants such as Bordered Straw, Scarce Bordered Straw, Pearly Underwing, Gem,  Olive-tree Pearl and Convolvulus Hawkmoths. 

One of the most enjoyable parts of being here was exploring off grid and self sufficiency and setting up our mini-farm thanks to skills of Holly's dad Bryan who managed to pass his food growing skills onto us sadly before he passed away earlier this year.

To keep the boys engaged another great new venture was setting up our mini-zoo with the aim of harbouring 100 species of animals and plants indoors which includes Chameleons, Geckos, Scorpions, Tarantulas, Frogs, Salamanders, Corals etc etc.

During our time here we recorded 1028 species across all taxa in the 'wild' plus another 100 or so inside the house. 

What with our new young family personally speaking this has been one of the happiest times of my life  and we will all certainly miss it here. Our life goal is now to re-create what we had here in our own homestead next year. Don't know whose idea it was to convince everyone to leave privately owned land behind and go and live in an apartment in the city with 'access to' crowded, dog shitted and littered green spaces? The 'private paradise' here has been a real philosophical game changer- surely there is no deeper and more secure way to engage with nature than privately owned nature especially for anyone who takes the climate and ecological emergency seriously?  

GARDEN BIRDS  

Red Kite (above) and Common Buzzard (below). Nice to see these daily in the garden

One of the breeding Spotted Flycatchers

Breeding Great Spotted Woodpeckers (above) and Coal Tits (below) 

There were about 28 breeding bird species (about 50 territories) in the garden include several pairs of Wrens. 

Nice to get the odd migrant coming through too including Willow Warblers 

Wintering Siskin 

MOTHS

Clifden Nonpariel- a regular garden beauty

Convolvulus Hawkmoth- had a couple of these during our time here

Vagrant China-mark (A county first) 

Mugwort Pearl- a county mega 

Beautiful Marbled- a great one to get inland

Vagrant Piercer- another county mega

Bordered Straw- a county rarity 

Dark Crimson Underwing (upper) with Red Underwing- another county rarity

Pinion-spotted Pug - another local rarity 

Small Black Arches- a very localised moth

Raspberry Clearing- the 6th for Bucks at the time 

Hawkmoths were numerous in the garden (Pine, Elephant, Small Elephant, Lime and Poplar above and Eyed Hawkmoth below) 

Jacob with an Eyed Hawkmoth 

THE MINI-FARM

A few pictures of the mini-farm (above) 

Our Light Sussex hens provided daily eggs (we hatched them from eggs too- below) 

No shortage of self grown food (above and below) 

Bryan (Grampies) teaching Jacob the ways

THE MINI-ZOO

Between a coral reef tank, a tropical swamp paludarium, an arid gecko tank and a couple of tropical forest tanks we managed to hit our target of 100 species of 'pets' indoors. 

THE OLD VICARAGE

The Old Vic in summer (above) and winter (below) 

The Team - Good Times! 

Getting ready to move

If all goes to plan we will be moving out of the Old Vicarage and into temporary renting (before our move down to coastal Sussex) this weekend. One of the biggest challenges has been moving our mini-zoo which comprises up to 100 species of animals and plants including a Panther Chameleon, Leopard Gecko, an Asian Fawn Tarantula and a Malaysian Forest Scorpion in addition to hundreds of fish, crabs, snails, isopods, corals, conches and sea urchins living within a tropical swamp paludarium enclosure, tropical forest tanks and a nano-coral reef tank.

Not an easy task but making progress and breaking things up into smaller tanks that we can move while maintaining the necessary conditions that they all need. As we have to do this twice (between the temporary rental and the permanent move) will probably maintain things in more mobile units and also gives a chance to re-set a few things.      

A few loose ends

I've been sorting through some old Azores photos recently for a contribution to a new book on Nearctic Vagrancy and found a few unsolved birds and unpublished pics in the process.

I'll stick them live on this blog so I can access it from anywhere to follow it up and also anyone reading this who can weigh in before please do. 

Adult Dunlin, September 2009, Cabo da Praia Quarry. The best candidate for a Hudsonian Dunlin that I can think of for the Azores. I meant to research this further at the time but forgot about it. Pictured with a Long-billed Dowitcher (below). Update 031223- there's not a lot online about the identification of this subspecies, a bit here on first-winters. The main features are the relatively long bill (reminiscent of Curlew Sandpiper), curved towards the end and often blob-tipped and markings from the black belly that extend along the flanks and the underbelly. Additionally (see link in this post) the supercilium is confined mainly above the lores. This bird is very worn on the upperparts, an early moult is also indicative of Hudsonian Dunlin. 

One of the best birds I've ever found (with Simon Buckell)- a first-summer Hudsonian Godwit, Cabo da Praia, July 2007 (before I started this blog). 

This richly coloured Teal sp (right) with a Blue-winged Teal raised alarms of being a Cinnamon Teal but I did some research on this and got some feedback from Sebastian Reber ' I am quite sure that this is a Eurasian/Green-winged Teal, due to several features : size compared to blue-winged Teal, pattern of the outer tertials (diagnostic), head pattern, whitish patch at the base/sides of the tail, grey rump (picture where the bird stretches its wings) and even finely grey feathers at the rear of the flanks well visible in some pictures. The latter are pale finely vermiculated blackish, which of course rules out a Cinnamon Teal and matches a male crecca/carolinensis. The overall warm colour fits better crecca than carolinensis (adults males) but it would be better to base this on views of the upperwing.'

A flight shot of the Lapa, White-throated Sparrow on Corvo October 2018. 

The Hermit Thrush on Corvo in 2019 that Paul French found. My own photo (I only published a few of Vincent's on this blog previously) 

Common Scoters on Terceira, Azores. I think we checked them for Black Scoter but will add them here to remind me to check again.  

The Terra Nostra Park Wood Duck on Sao Miguel, Azores. It was resident for years and taken for granted but has gone now. 

A couple of Azores micromoths to identify . The only similar looking moth (above) on lepiforum is Oegoconia novimundi but not sure see here

Looks like one of the scops, there are several species on the Azores several of which are endemic. See here