And Bird Number 300 is....

River Warbler!! Went back to Norfolk for the Saturday morning viewing and this time success! I got my wish of actually seeing the bird singing too. Brilliant! I only went back because Phil was driving this time, Joe and Bun also came along. You can read about it here ( without copious amounts of whinging for once) coz I'm still a little bit dazed and finding writing a chore. We were hoping to fit the White-tailed Plover at Slimbridge in on the way home but time constraints and the absolutely awful traffic situation meant we never made it. Bun kindly agreed to go up there with me for it today ( he'd seen it before at Seaforth) but it had done a bunk, all the way to Dungeness in fact, just about as far away it could be and still be in England! ****** pants!!*  I could go on about how Slimbridge was a nice day out and worth the money but to be honest the best thing about it was the bacon roll! I'm sure it would be just lovely with about 99% less people there.

I took a few digiscoped shots of the River Warbler singing, mainly because Phil said I'd never get a photo with it in the bush like it was, and I love a challenge! Perhaps he actually said I'd never get a decent photo? In which case he'd be right.

Can you tell what it is yet?

How about now? 

Well you can see the part where the song's coming from.

I took some video too. Really shonky. The bird is right on the right hand side. You will have to turn the sound right up to hear the song due to all the noisy twitchers but the best thing is you can see the whole bird vibrating with the effort of his singing. 

*     Insert any  'sentence enhancer'  of your choice that you'd never hear a person as genteel and cultured as myself utter. 

Bird Number 300?

Well nearly. After a mere six hour drive over to Norfolk on Monday evening, myself , Bun and Joe joined around a hundred others hoping to see and hear the singing River Warbler,.We heard it ( that was the easy part) and after a few short bursts at around 8.30 it began to sing almost continually from about 9.30 onwards but 'appeared' (poor choice of word there coz it didn't appear!)) to be doing so from within or behind a small stand of large alders. It certainly was an incredible song, very like a bush cricket and I'm pleased to have heard it. The song itself is better than the bird per se, which is after all  just another 'a small brown job'. I've got to be honest though, if I'd known I wouldn't actually see the bird I wouldn't have made the twelve hour round trip! A brilliant song's one thing but actually 'seeing it' coming out of the bird is something else! So instead of bird number 300, River Warbler is bird number 2 (on my heard only list). Oh well, perhaps next time. (she said  philosophically,through clenched teeth). I tried to get a recording of the song but the background noise was always too loud. This will have to do as a souvenir instead.

The customary 'twitch photo'.

 I was actually getting a photo of the guy who brought along a stool ( good idea which I may employ in future) not that he needed it in the end. The guy next to him looks a bit concerned, perhaps he may be  worried that his likeness will appear on some blog or other for no apparent reason. He'd be right!! ;-)

On Sunday Bun and I drove down to Prawle Point in South Devon, for three reasons really, those being, Cirl Buntings, chance to see all of the House Finch, ( I didn't see its head when I saw it in Cornwall! :( ) and to actually see Prawle Point itself, neither of us having been there before.

Prawle Point.

A whole House Finch beautifully backlit!

Cirl Bunting

Yesterday I nipped over to Radipole Lake to twitch another flower, a very rare form of Bee Orchid called atrofuscus. which has an entirely brown lip with no markings on it. I'm not entirely sure why some Bee Orchid mutations warrant the 'accolade' of becoming a named variety and others don't because they're within the excepted parameters for the nominate form. I won't be losing any sleep over it though!

Mutant.

Ophrys apifera Var. atrofuscus.

I blame the hamsters ( updated version)

The hamsters which run around tirelessly in their wheels to bring Seaton its lightening fast broadband service have been slacking off of an evening of late, meaning when I've finally gotten around to blogging each night the service has been a bit on the hit and miss side. So I haven't bothered.  Nothing worse than spending ages over a blog post to have it mysteriously vanish when you try to publish it. It seems okay now, perhaps they've replaced the hamsters with the 'Ferrari' of  rodent power the degu!

Anyway I've got a weeks worth of  inconsequential 'stuff' to play with now so here goes. Last Sunday afternoon we travelled to Buckfastleigh in South Devon to see the scarce plant Deptford Pink. A plant which allegedly has never grown in Deptford!  The flowers are pretty small but are beautiful close up.

The lovely Deptford Pink which is now only found on 7% of its total historic area.

After Seeing the Deptford Pink we went over to Stover CP to look for  the dragonfly, Downy Emerald but dipped. What I did get here was bitten by something , don't know what but I was really under the weather for the next two days as my histamines went into overdrive!

Wednesday I felt much better and decided to take a walk along the coast path to Culverhole, quite a strenuous walk at the best of times, including a climb down the cliff with the aid of a rope! It was absolutely sweltering but I saw some lovely orchids and also a few Keeled Skimmers. The orchids I spotted here were Bee ( typical ones this time) Marsh Fragrant, Southern Marsh ( Var. junialis) and Marsh Helleborine. Added to the species I've seen on the top of the cliffs ( Common Twayblade, Early Purple, Common Spotted, Pyramidal, and Greater Butterfly) that makes nine species of orchid within half an hour's walk from my house, which isn't bad! :-)

Bee Orchid

Marsh Fragrant

Marsh Helleborine, not rare but definitely my favourite orchid.

Beauty and The Beast

My climb up out of the undercliff and walk back to the car was much more challenging than I could ever had envisaged. The reason for this was this:

I found this Roe Deer fawn collapsed and exhausted on the coast path in the undercliff, there was no sign of his  mother, well there was an horrible 'smell of death' emanating from the undergrowth, which was most probably her. I knew the best thing was to probably just walk away, just in case the mother wasn't dead. I just couldn't do it though especially as the fawn was right on the path which is usually pretty busy with  passing hikers and dog walkers. I decided to carry it back with me. It was totally infested with ticks, i've never seen as many on one animal. I removed over twenty during the walk back to the car, but there were many more, some of them moving onto me, which was nice!!! :-(  It was sweltering in the car so I kept the fawn at home in the guinea pig's run fort a couple of hours until the weather cooled down a bit. I got it to drink some water which was encouraging, and then took it along to the RSPCA wildlife centre at West Hatch, thirty or so miles away.
EDIT: Can't believe I forgot to put this bit in but immediately on arriving home from West Hatch I rushed around to pick up Bun and we headed off for Abbotsbury in Dorset to twitch the Gull-billed Tern that had been there most of that day ( we had both been unable to go for a nearer one at Bowling Green Marsh, Topsham, earlier in the week). When we arrived it hadn't been seen for over an hour but it was refound flying up and down along the beach. Ooh goody! thought I, a nice trudge down the shingle ridge that makes up Chesil Beach, what a treat after my earlier exertions! It's like trying to walk through semi-set cement! Worth it though, we eventually enjoyed superb views as the bird made a couple of very close flypasts. A lifer for us both and bird number 299 for me ( not counting House Finch). I wonder what number 300 will be? :-)

Yesterday whilst taking a photo of this interesting looking caterpillar...

..which turned out to be that of a Peacock butterfly ( I'd never seen one as big as this before, it must have been the final instar, looking for a pupation site), I inadvertently stumbled upon the nest site of a pair of Redstarts. The nest was in the wall that the caterpillar was on and both the parents had arrived with billfulls of  scrumptious little morsels for the lucky nestlings. I took a couple of photos before moving away and leaving them to it. Fantastic stuff, definitely my closest ever views of Redstarts.

Mum with a nice juicy caterpillar...

Dad with an equally juicy spider and WASP!

(click on it to enlarge for gruesome detail) 

A few new moths during the week, nothing very exciting though. Not photographed were Sandy Carpet, Small Seraphim, Foxglove Pug and Dusky Brocade.

Grey Arches

 Miller

Barred Yellow

Small Yellow Wave

Phoned RSPCA this afternoon to enquire about 'Bambi'. The news was bad. He was euthanased because he was suffering from 'flystrike'. I hadn't noticed any maggots on him, I had looked but they were already inside his, let's say alimentary canal, you get the picture I'm sure, poor little soul, put a real dampener on the day that did. Still I'tried to help and that's all I could do :-(