Saturday, October 09, 2010

Stonechat on Nene Washes

Some autumn moths


Mallow


Garden Rose Tortrix

Acleris sparsana

Treble-bar

Frosted Orange
Mothing has been hopeless for weeks now, and I seriously considered stopping for the winter a few days ago, after a catch of three familiar moths. However, the weather has gone mild and interesting over the last couple of nights, so I have got the trap out again, and finally got a couple of desired autumn moths. In addition to one or two slightly unseasonally late moths, such as Treble-bar, I have added four species to the garden list (now 114) in the last couple of nights:
Garden Rose Tortrix
Acleris sparsana
Mallow and
Frosted Orange

Friday, October 08, 2010

Garden Spotted Flycatcher

This Spotted Flycatcher (in a neighbour's birch), was my second garden tick of the day (after Lesser Redpoll earlier) and a very late record (the latest ever in the Peterborough area). Hence, I don't feel too bad about publishing such basic photos...



Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Sunday, October 03, 2010

Nutty Great Spotted Woodpecker


While I was emptying the moth trap this morning, in the garden, I heard a kick from a Great Spotted Woodpecker and looked up to see it in one of next door's trees. Then it flew off and I thought it was a goner. A few minutes later I heard tapping from the end of the garden, and the Great Spot (the red patch on the nape shows its a male) was up to the classic trick of getting a hazelnut (from one of our hazels), wedging it into a crevice in a little apple tree (always the same tree, we use to hang feeders from) and bashing hell out of it to extract the nutty goodness.
Luckily it did this long enough for me to pop inside for my digiscoping kit. It was too dark and rainy for stills, but I did manage this sequence of videos. Note the bit at the end when the pecker shuffled up the tree and an opportunist Great Tit came for the spoils...