Look to the Skies

A quiet morning, the only thing of note when I opened the Tern hide were 2 Dunlin, both quite long-billed birds in contrast to the one I posted a picture of the other day. I then spent some time trimming paths and in the process saw my first Dingy Skippers of the year in the grassier parts of the Lichen Heath north of the Ivy North hide.

The Great Spotted Woodpeckers on "Woodpeckercam" will probably be flying before I return to Blashford, in fact they may do so tomorrow. The young are being fed regularly, the female often bringing in beakfuls of damselflies, held almost puffin-fashion in the beak. Most seem to be newly emerged ones, an easy, if rather unusual food source for a woodpecker I would have thought.

I ate my lunch in the Tern hide, following yesterday's success with a kite I searched the skies, a single Hobby was all I could find. Then the gulls all flew up, clearly they had seen something I had not, then I saw it, a Red Kite, possibly the same bird as yesterday, drifted over, almost over the hide and away, I think to the east. I was uncertain as I was distracted by another large bird overhead, this time an Osprey. The local Buzzards got up and dive-bombed it repeatedly as it too drifted east. Below is another in my increasing collection of very poor pictures of rather good wildlife.
Once again the moth trap was quite interesting, or at least the contents were, the highlights were 2 Pale Oak Beauties, these are amongst the largest moths with the "looper" type caterpillars.