Monday 7 March 2011

Admiral with Staying Power

A bright start, going round to open up the hide I saw a single black-necked grebe from the Tern hide. At the Ivy North hide a Cetti's warbler was calling and a bittern crossed the channel left of the hide. I also heard the lesser spotted woodpecker calling in the direction of the Woodland hide. On leaving the Woodland hide the woodpecker was again calling and I saw it briefly in the tops of the alder trees beside the path. Near the Ivy South hide a very approachable robin was on the path and I got a quick picture.
Despite temperatures down to one degree last night, the moth catch was quite varied. Small Quaker was the most frequent, with 2 yellow horned, 2 common Quaker, a Hebrew character, a dotted border, a small brindled beauty, a satellite, an oak beauty (picture below) and below that a twin spot Quaker.
The twin spot Quaker is well named as it has two spots on each fore-wing.

One skip of rubbish was taken away today and another empty one was delivered so I could remove a load of rubbish dumped on the shore of Ibsley Water. It was an assorted mass of household junk, stuff the children had grown out of, old dog food cans, mostly from Sainsburys, although the shopping trolley was from the Co-op. They had obviously done some work on the kitchen and had the driveway done in "cobbles". Sadly nothing with an address though. It is quite possible the householder had paid someone to clear their rubbish and it was the contractor that had dumped it, however, the householder remains responsible until it is legally disposed of.
I also gathered up the various bags of rubbish we collected yesterday as part of the New Forest clean up. In the process I came across a red admiral basking beside the Dockens Water path, my second butterfly of the year. Red admirals can over-winter in this country, although this usually only happens to any great extent in mild winters and the one just ending cannot be described as that, so this one did well.
A smew was again reported today from Ivy Lake and I saw two curlew flying off from Ibsley Water and at the end of the day 3 Mediterranean gull there, all in breeding plumage and including two adults and a second summer.

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