July Unwritten

Friday July 31

Odds and Ends

JH brought round, for identification,  a large caterpillar she'd found in their garden feeding on Rosebay Willowherb. It was an Elephant Hawkmoth larvae.

Watching it feed, one could see how it got its name. The 'mouth' protrudes like a small trunk. 

We still have it, hoping it will pupate. J is looking after it for the weekend as we are off to Wareham until Tuesday. 

We've had some interesting and productive moth sessions, including another at Hickling NWT reserve where I saw my first, and much wanted, Lempke's Goldspot. Fenn's Wainscot was also a real goodie.

Fenn's Wainscot

Lempke's Goldspot

 Everyone apart from John G had at least one new moth. He'd seen a Fenn's 20 years ago when he first started mothing and was invited, by a member of the Cadbury family, to a trap opening at Whiteslea Lodge.
In our own trap and new for this year.

Pebble Hooktip

Ruby Tiger - which Greg calls as 'The Stripper'

 Cley

After dealing with an almost empty moth trap, the result of a cold and moonlit night, we drove to Cley. After a coffee and a scone at the Centre we walked to Daukes, seeing Meadow Brown, Peacock and Tortoiseshell Butterflies. Red,  Soldier beetles occupied the Umbellicer flowers and an, as yet unidentified, Dragonfly landed on the boardwalk. It had a red tail and a limy body.

I carried my scope to-day as I was determined to practice using my IPhone and adaptor to digiscope. We sat for well over an hour in Daukes enjoying the often sunlit view.

 Many Lapwings, Avocets, handsome Black-tailed Godwits and a scattering of Ruff. The lone Spoonbill was headless the whole time. The first calendar year Little Gull in front of Pat's was too distant even for this set-up. I tried hard to locate a Garganey amongst the eclipse ducks, no luck.
Three Wood Sandpipers were also distant on Pat's Pool.

A few of my efforts, quite pleasing for the distances involved but, the depth of field is not great. 

Moulting Ruff

Headless Spoonbill plus bird selection

First - ever- photo of a Wood Pigeon

The phone managed some sort of flight pic........

Great 3rd Ashes Test win for England with a day and a bit to spare, the Aussie tail was hard to shift, the win was by eight wickets.