Monthly Archives: August 2011

Bank Holiday Monday and after a long weekend it was time to play out our visit was again down to Old Moor RSPB in the vain hope of a few Hawkers.

The walk from the car park along the car park hedges produced a couple of Common Darter enjoying the limited sunshine as we made our move towards Warbler Way for the first part of the day. Large White and Common Blue Butterflies were soon evident as we strolled along the Trans Pennine Trial

Common Blue Butterfly

We soon encountered more Common Darters along with a couple of rather worn Meadow Brown Butterflies and some smart-looking Small Coppers with Common Blue Damselflies in and amongst.

The second part of the day we spent on the reserve seeing some bird life which started before the reception centre with someone don’t know how they did it but they did because they were well hidden in the nearby tree 2 Tawny Owls which became the centre of attention for a lot of people. On to the reserve and from the wader and family hides there was good numbers of Little Grebes and  Coots  along with lesser numbers of Gadwall, Mallard, Teal, Canada Geese, Cormorant, the Sand Martins were still very much evident near the man made banking and we saw a single Common Swift over the reserve. Waders in attendance were Common Sandpiper, Ruff, Lapwing, and Greenshank.

Greenshank

Sitting in hides wasn’t finding any Hawkers so we decided on coffee and then back to the pond dipping pools to see if we could find any hawkers, as we made our way back for coffee I encountered my first Emerald Damselfly for the year a beautiful Male. After coffee and cake it was on to the pond dipping pools and Common Darters were again soon encountered, but it wasn’t till we had nearly finished walking around the pools that my wife pointed out a larger Dragonfly, this turned out to be a Male Migrant Hawker, patrolling his territory and soon after this we picked out a Female Migrant Hawker in the reed bed egg laying, but she turned out to be a bit camera-shy hiding herself  behind the reed stems. Well we enjoyed one hawker for the day maybe  September will bring some more.

Common-Darter

The Day List :-

Emerald Damselfly, Common Blue Damselfly, Small Copper, Meadow Brown, Large White, Gatekeeper, Common Darter, Migrant Hawker, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper, Ruff, Lapwing, Cormorant, Woodpigeon, Stock Dove,m Magpie, Crow, Starling, Canada Goose, Mallard, Teal, Gadwall, Pied Wagtail, Goldfinch, Linnet, Bullfinch, Blue Tit, Chiffchaff, Black Headed Gull, Tufted Duck, Swift, Tawny Owl (2)

The forecast was good so I booked the Wednesday of work (17th) and made my way up to a couple of recently found Butterfly sites Warton Crag and Arnside Knott. First call was Warton Crag landing at about 9 o’clock in the quarry car park. I made my way out the right side of the car park and along the footpaths not knowing the area it was guess work, I found myself on the side of the crag watching some Common Blue Butterflies along with Meadow Brown, Speckled Woods, Red Admiral and  Small Copper

Red Admiral

 My reason for coming up into Cumbria was Arnside Knott so after an hour I left Warton Crag and 20 minutes later landed at Arnside Knott

Arnside Knott

Walking up the hill and thru the small wood I came into a small glade being hit by the sun and then saw the butterfly I had come to see, in flight it appears small and black this was the Scotch Argus and Arnside Knott was one of the better places to see this small beauty, as the day went on I found that the Scotch Argus was rather numerous here the day went by with little else about there was the few Speckled Woods, Graylings, Meadow Brown and a rather worn Dark Green Fritillary. Whilst here I got talking to a guy who put me on to Gait Burrows so it was there I ended up on my way back home seeing again Speckled Woods, Green veined White and Grayling. More photos at my flickr, if you want to find out about these sites see my Butterfly tab

Speckled Wood

Scotch Argus

Scotch Argus

Grayling

The end of the week saw me at a local site looking at the gorgeous Wall Butterfly

Wall

I had a highlight this week on the work patch with a Hobby going thru being actively seen off  the patch by a horde of Swallows. The Hobby did try  catching one or two  of the Swallows which was great for me to see but the Swallows didn’t like it, so having ganged up on it the Hobby soon moved thru, This week wasn’t great for insects but it was good to see Small Coppers on the work patch in the one day we did get some sunshine.

But its been an Old Moor week this week with our first visit on Tuesday 9th for the organised Bat Watch this was a great outing and a time for learning. The event  started at 8pm with a finish time of 10pm the first 45 minutes was all talk going into the background of bats, how many species etc. but we were soon out walking the paths with bat detectors in hand. We ended up hearing 3 species of bat from the 5 found at Old Moor these were Common Pipistrelle, Soprano Pipistrelle and Noctule, leaving Daubentons and Brown Eared for another day, looking forward to the next one on the 6th of September.

My next visit was on the 12th with the hope of finding a few waders moving thru and maybe a couple of Dragonfly Hawkers species as well. The insects went out the window with what the weather had given me but the day was saved with a few waders going thru these were Green Sandpiper (7) [Video Link], Knot (1) [Video Link], Greenshank (4) [Video Link],  and Redshank. Other birds of note on the day were Snipe, Grey Herons, Common Tern, Sand Martins, Kestrel, and Great Spotted Woodpecker.  The Lapwing flock now appears to be building up nicely at Old Moor. After a couple of hours in Wath Ings hide the day seemed to have had warmed up a little so I made my back via the pools catching sight of Common Blue, Blue Tailed, Azure and Large Red Damselflies, 2 Common Blue Butterflies and a Small Tortoiseshell and a Brown Hawker not for the hoped for Southern, that was the day I was happy I had my Greenshank the bird I had come for.

Small Copper

Common Blue Female