Birding finishes with a bang and insects take over



Thanks to Aravind Ramesh  who found this Collared Pratincole on Severnside  there was an exciting local trip to be had. Joan and I waited for a few days in the expectation that numbers of people would be low and then went up. It was an unusual twitch as people sat or stood in twos spread along the river bank path but well worth it as I had only ever seen one in Britain before. What was even better though was to catch up with a couple of friends that we had not seen since the start of lockdown.

The bird flew several times for 20 to 30 mins at a time but never came particularly close. I did not fancy going up a narrower path to get closer either. So these are my best efforts.


Emboldened by this we had a morning on the levels seeing the usual species and enjoying the peace of this area

Coming from Scotland Joan misses the sound of cuckoos here so it was great to hear and see a few



Many sunny hours in the garden lead to a few excellent dragonfly sightings such as these two, Broad-bodied Chaser and then female Black-tailed Skimmer




Up on Walton Common there were still no rare skippers and indeed still very few butterflies but Meadow Browns were out in force and I saw my first Marbled White and Dark -green Fritillaries of the year








My most exciting find though was a Yellow-legged Clearwing. I had gone up, armed with the pheromone lure for this species but was astonished to actually find one sitting on some bramble while searching for butterflies. Inn about 15 years of searching I have never come across one like this before



They are most unusual looking moths, mimicking wasps.

With more regular use the moth trap turned up a few of my favourites such as this Lime-speck Pug whose bird dropping camouflage is better seen in the second picture when it settled on a wall




Finally the Puss Moth caterpillars continue to thrive and are all purple and green now







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