The warm weather over the past few months has resulted in some excellent days for Butterflies and nights for Moths but as September dawns, the temperatures are starting to drop and so the moth trap wont be as busy. Having said that, I got yet another couple of new moths for the garden this week - Old Lady, which is a large butterfly sized moth, and Brindled Green. Peacock butterflies have been in abundance and on one day I had seven species of Butterfly in the garden including a migrant Painted Lady.
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| Peacock |
However, the end of August means migration - I should have headed east a couple of weeks ago when there was a plethera of Scandinavian migrants on the east coast but instead we tried to get some migrants trapped at Marks Farm and my garden. It wasn't to be unfortunately. The local finch and tit population is doing well as they devour the sunflower seeds - I have double figure counts for Greenfinch, Goldfinch and Chaffinch every day at present - soon these will be augmented by birds from further afield with a bit of luck.
The local Swallows have had a few broods this year and there were around 120 over the reservoir yesterday afternoon.
Rishton Reservoir has been doing quite well recently. There were nine Shelduck on the west bank a couple of weeks ago and today, six Wigeon, three Teal and a Gadwall. The Black Swan is regular again along with four Mute Swans. Bernie and I took a walk around the canal last weekend and saw that the local Mute Swan youngsters were doing well.
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| Pair of Mute Swans with seven healthy looking youngsters |
The water level is dropping fast and the sandy bank should be attracting waders but I've had very few - just a Dunlin this morning though Bill Aspin had a Green Sandpiper yesterday.
Hopefully it will be a fine night so I'll try again with the moth trap before doing some ringing with Mark.
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| Black Rustic |
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| Old Lady |
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| Pink-barred Sallow |
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| Copper Underwing |
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