Birds, wildlife and travel
Being close to the sea, we were rather cooler than the record-breaking temperatures in the week, but it has still been pretty hot. The best moths have been either side of the hot days, with a plethora of new species for the garden, 5 in a fortnight, including some fairly scarce migrants.
Butterflies have also been plentiful, but the birds remain pretty quiet: that should change over the next few weeks.
… and the birding is rubbish. Still, there’s lots of butterflies, and the mothing is slowly picking up.
A walk up the down yesterday found Dark-green and Silver-washed Fritillaries in Sompting, Hummingbird Hawkmoths and a good supporting cast of other insects. Later we went to Knepp to find the Large Tortoiseshell that has taken up residence. It didn’t look promising, but after a while it was found drinking sap from an oak tree: rare, but not much to look at with a dull underside in the dark. Fortunately after about 20 minutes it flew out and sat in the sun at eye level close by.