Three in One

Thursday March 19 - Friday 20

Thursday

At last, a moth catch of both good numbers - and a reasonable variety for the time of year. I didn't expect it after a cold moonlit night, neither conducive to moth-ing. 36 in total with 9 species. 

A very active Dotted Border, taken through a plastic pot

Common Quaker - open

 

Common Quaker - dark

Common Quaker - pale

Twin-spotted Quaker

An afternoon visit to Felbrigg Hall in search of the recently reported but a 2 week resident Black Redstart was immediately successful. Walking across the front of the buildings, searching the rooftops, the adult male Black Redstart was perched on a lion ornamenting the top level of the main Hall. It was very active, eventually flying down to a low wall near the Orangery where Pam took some photos - I hadn't carried a camera. Why? That's a question I asked myself.......We didn't like to get too near as another birder was also photographing nearby.

Friday

Time for another visit to Barton Broad. After a very cloudy start, when all we saw of the solar eclipse was a crescent towards the end when the sun began to peep through the cloud, it was now a clear blue sky. Warm enough not to need a sweater under my jacket. At least two Chiffchaffs singing, probably a third, no migrants on the Broad. We usually see Little Gulls by now. The Hirundine and Terns are less predictable.

Again we enjoyed watching the 20+ Great Crested Grebes chasing off other males, presenting weed to the females and generally shaking their booty. I spent some time practising phonescoping on a perched Cormorant as well as the Grebes. I'm impressed with my IPhone camera - as good as the CleySpy man said it was when we bought the adaptor. I'm yet to try out video, first things first.

For comparison, these were taken with my Canon DX200