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The trickle of migrants locally continues slowly, but the heat has brought out the moths, with a very busy trap last night containing Oak Eggar, one of our favourites, and our second ever Pine Hawk Moth amongst many others.

A Swallow is part of a pre-departure gathering

Common Darter

Whinchat

Con Buntings cannot live by corn alone

A young Yellowhammer prefers the company of the Corn Bunting flock

Oak Eggar

Garden Tigers

Pebble Prominent

Pine Hawk Moth

There’s not much action on the birding front at the moment, although there are signs of the beginning of autumn migration.  The moths have been a bit of a let down too, so it has fallen to butterflies to keep things ticking along.  They certainly have done that: we’ve had 30 species in July and 26 species in the last week, including a Brown Hairstreak seen from the bedroom window, a first for the house.

Here’s a few pictures of some insects

Common Blue

Chalkhill Blue

Silver-spotted Skipper

Southern Hawker

Another go at Comet Neowise, this time with some better postprocessing

A bit of a change of subject today.  After the dismal showing of comet Swan, “the comet of the year”, at the end of May (seen dismally through binoculars with imagination), comet Neowise is much more impressive. It was clear last night and a look out of the window at about 11 pm quickly found it, with the naked eye, in the north west.  I’m not much cop at astronomical photography and there has been a lot of inexpert photoshopping to allow for the movement of the comet during the long exposure, but it’s not a bad effort.  I can imagine that if you can get a clear night away from a town it would be very impressive.

Normally the only vultures we see on our trips to Yorkshire are my family, but on the way home yesterday we detoured to the Peak District, where a Lammergeier, or Bearded Vulture has taken up residence.

The weather was both help and hindrance: it was a miserable grey day with occasional rain, which meant that the bird sat tight in a crevice for most of the day.  At least we got to see it, as better weather would have had it ranging over a very wide area, but it wasn’t the view we wanted.  Eventually, just as we were about to start the 3.5 mile walk back to the car, and the journey down south, it emerged from the crevice and sat in the open, showing just what a magnificent beast it is.  Unfortunately, despite giving it another hour, it never flew, but it was a great view of a superb bird.

A trip to the seaside on Sunday has nesting Sand Martins

Eventually the Lammergeier emerged

We’re up in Yorkshire for the weekend, and today was our rather delayed visit to the East Coast.  Starting at Flamborough, we added Puffin, Manx Shearwater and Shag to the year list, although it was a bit slow.  Moving on to Bempton we were turned away: the car park was full and they had sensibly not opened the overflow car park.  Rather than miss out, we decided to go on to Speeton and then walk back towards the reserve along the cliff top.  This was a good decision as there were plenty of birds, particularly Puffins, at this end of the cliffs, and hardly any people.  In the absence of people in lockdown, the birds have been nesting higher up the cliffs, so we had very good view of Gannet – we even had to shoo one off the path in front of us.

Grey Seals were plentiful at Flamborough

Fulmar

Many Gannets, with chicks

Bad neighbours

A nice close Puffin

Feed me!

Hummingbird Hawkmoth

It has become traditional at this time of year to have a family photo of a large collection of hawk moths, and this year is no exception. Privets are putting a strong show in this year, with three being our best ever count.

Elsewhere, there’s a fantastic crop of Pyramidal Orchids just over the down from us, and our first visit to Pagham Harbour of the year gave us our first Little Terns fro the year and very little else.

We had a bit of a lazy week, without that much walking, but the wildlife came to us with a decent moth trap at last, starring Eyed and Privet Hawk Moths.  Yesterday we made up for things with a walk over to Arundel, 25 miles.  It was a cracking day, and we had Ringlet, White Admiral and Silver-washed Fritillary in the Dover and at Arundel we finally had distant but clear views of Cattle Egret.  This is probably my fifth attempt to get it on the on-foot list, all involving long walks, so it’s a relief to finally connect.  On the way back we also had a female Stag Beetle in Worthing – we have missed them at home so far.

The long walk meant the small camera, so there’s not that many photos.

Shark attack

Eyed- Hawk Moth

Privet Hawk Moth

Reed Bunting singing by the Arun

A view south from the Angmering Park estate

Female Stag Beetle

A good walk took in a trip to Beeding Hill to see the Red-footed Falcon that turned up there yesterday.  While I was there, it simply sat on the ground.  Later on this evening we went back in the car with a better camera.  This time it was very active, hunting constantly, unfortunately much more distant.  A smart bird.

Red-footed Falcon

Being up in Yorkshire for Dad’s funeral at least gave us a chance to do a bit of birding on the way back.  Strid Woods was as splendid as ever, although we were too late for singing Wood Warbler.  Redstarts were very showy and a first for me: a fledgling Pied Flycatcher being fed, was fantastic.  We also got two new moths: Chimney Sweeper and Floxglove Pug.

On our way down south we stopped off at Collingham and waited for five whole minutes before the Rose-coloured Starling showed up, and later in Lincolnshire we had a lifer in the form of a Blyth’s Reed Warbler, that eventually showed well and sung beautifully – an amazing song, far better than the short snatch I recorded suggests.

Foxglove Pug

Rose-coloured Starling

Blyth’s Reed Warbler

What a song!

We had an unexpectedly close view of some wildlife yesterday, when a Greenfinch absolutely brained itself against the patio doors.  Karen pronounced it dead, but it still had a faint twitch, so I went out and picked it up, whereupon it stirred a bit.

Clearly stunned, it sat on my hand without much fear and after I put it down in a sheltered spot it sat around without moving for a full 90 minutes before flying off.

They’re not my favourite birds, but it was a stunning bird to see so close.