The Twitch of the Year

Yes, It's been put on hold a couple of times but yesterday was THE day! After a sleepless night, I was up bright and early and drove round to pick up Bun (he'd probably not slept either) and off we went to Cornwall to see the (American) BLACK DUCK!!

On the way there I braked rather harshly at one point, (probably due to the excitement coz I'm usually such a good driver) and we heard a loud clunk as Bun's scope was jettisoned off the back seat and became wedged in between the front seats and the handbrake. Bun eventually released it but I was worried that it might be damaged (even more than it already was) and jokingly said "don't worry that's probably fixed the dicky focusing wheel". When we arrived at Colliford Reservoir Bun set up his scope to look for the duck and guess what? Focusing wheel in perfect working order! Nice one! A good start to the day. :-)

We asked some of the assembled birders where the Black Duck was and they informed us that it was behind a Mallard on a large clump of mud, about half a mile away. So we obviously began to look forward to getting a stunning view soon. After about half an hour or so the Mallard moved and there he was, the Black Duck in all his glory, a typical flamboyant American. He didn't appear to like the limelight however and it was just as though he was thinking " Eek! Them twitchers can actually SEE ME!" Because a split second later he was up on his feet and waddling over the mud heap. He disappeared over the top and stayed there. Then after about an hour......

.... This.
Sorry he's not there, I was just teasing, he didn't move.
You can see how crippling the view 'would have been' though.

During the brief time he was in view we did see all the stunning features, the brown body, the beige head and neck the pale bill...Zzzzz.zzz.z. Bun was lucky enough to see the white underwing too. I'm so jealous! So what did I really think of the American Black Duck? This will some it up nicely. "Boy! What a guy!"


The plan for the rest of the day was to see a couple of butterfly species new to both of us; the Heath Fritillary and the Marsh Fritillary, and for these we headed back to Devon and the area around Dartmoor. The Heath Fritillaries were showing beautifully in the warm sunshine, they really are quite exquisite, and were a joy to behold. :-)

Here are a few photos of them:

Next was the Marsh Fritillary, I know of a very good reserve on which to see these in mid-Devon but it would have been a bit of a long detour, so instead we tried a place near Challacombe Farm on Dartmoor where they can usually be seen in small numbers. However, we had been informed that none had been seen here in recent weeks and that they could have 'gone over'
( a lepidopterist's phrase?) at this site for the year.

At first it looked like this was indeed the case, with not a single butterfly of any description on the wing. It was cloudy though so we decided to wait and see what would happen when the sun came out again. During our wait we were kept pleasantly distracted by a pair of Redstarts, the male of which was particularly fine, it's a shame that the day had been so warm. The resulting heat haze was a bit intense for digiscoping. We also heard a Garden Warbler singing, and a couple of the regulation Cuckoos (they seem to be everywhere except on our patch). The sun duly appeared from behind a cloud and almost immediately I spotted a single orange butterfly fluttering up from the vegetation, it was soon followed by several others. A look with the bins revealed they were indeed Marsh Fritillaries. There were six in total and they kept to the far side of a small wet meadow, very wet. I wanted a photo so gingerly crept out over the marshy ground, it would be okay if I kept to the tussocks I thought. I soon sank! I got a couple of snaps though, here's one of them.

Marsh Fritillary

Ironically, a short while later while I was standing on the lane next to the meadow looking down at my brown ankles and squelchy shoes, a lovely Marsh Fritillary landed right by me on some nice dry grass, and here it is.

Another Marsh Fritillary.
Photographed without having nearly as much fun though!

On this photo you can see the shiny almost greasy appearance of the fore wings, this is a characteristic of the species, which was once actually called the Greasy Fritillary. According to a book I have it was also sometimes called 'the dishclout', meaning it looked like a dirty greasy dishcloth. I think that's a bit harsh. I think it's lovely.

This however isn't, but it is fascinating.

A Sexton (or burying) Beetle.
Here seen on what looked like the rear half of a vole.
Don't look too closely because the beetle has a couple of parasites which look horrible!
(yes, more horrible than a beetle on a dead vole)

Neither I nor Bun had ever seen one of these before and we watched it for quite a while as it tried and tried to move the dead body. It lifted it a few times but couldn't manoeuvre it on the stony terrain. Apparently they usually dig underneath the body and bury it in situ, but here the ground was very hard and so the beetle was trying to move it elsewhere. We looked at the same place on our way back over an hour later and the beetle had given up. Shame after so much effort.

On another note. I know I'm very lucky to live so close to the beach but it does sometimes have its bad points, like this morning for instance. I got up, put the kettle on and let the dog out onto the garden as usual. It was already lovely and sunny so I stepped outside to enjoy the early morning fresh air. Phew!! I nearly passed out, there was a foul stench of rotting fish. Sometimes a vague whiff of fish emanates from the skip at The Yacht Club after a sunny weekend, when all the casual fishermen dump there left over bait there. This was ten times worse though. I stuck my head round the gate to investigate and was disgusted to see a couple of carrier bags dumped right outside. I later donned my rubber gloves in order to clear them up and discovered they contained loads of decapitated mackerel. Just charming, some people are so thoughtful!

I Love The Smell of Goats in The Morning!

BUT.... Only if it's emanating from one of these!

The Lizard Orchid, as well as looking bizarre it is said to smell of billy goat.

I thought I was going to have to travel to Newmarket in Cambridgeshire to see one of these, but very early this morning I made the hour long journey to a secret location in Somerset where at least fifty of these were growing (probably many more). I thought that the supposed goat aroma had been a bit exaggerated because they did smell vaguely of goat but only if you got real close and sniffed.... I was VERYwrong. When the sun came out and gently warmed them they didn't half hum, and yes, exactly like a billy goat! Perhaps the smell attracts horse flies!?

A couple of close-ups of the flowers, which are said to resemble a lizard, hence the name. The extremely long central lobe of the lip looks like the tail and the shorter side lobes the rear legs. There doesn't appear to be a front half of the lizard though!

Late morning Bun and I popped over to a site on Woodbury Common hoping to see Silver-studded Blue butterflies (which neither of us had seen before). We weren't to be disappointed either, for the site in question was festooned with them, little blue gems glistening in the sun as they perched on the ling flowers and gorse.

Male

Female. The females have a habit of rubbing their fore wings rhythmically over their hind wings, probably to aid the release of pheromones, but making photos difficult!

Underside of female showing 'silver studs'

A couple of little gems.

A couple more.

There were also plenty of these. Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Also a few of these- a gorgeous male Green Hairstreak,

Bun spotted this Common Lizard basking in a sunny patch deep within the undergrowth.
Not the best photo, coz some of its head's missing but I like the way you can tell that it's 'clocked me'!

This yellow moth was one to look up when I got home. And I did.
It's a male Clouded Buff

Also today I took Rex for a wander round at The Yacht Club, and was surprised to see this unusual construction taking shape.

Oh no! I've always thought the Axe logo (see gable end of building) was a little sinister. Now they appear to be building a scaffold! When will the beheadings commence!? And perhaps more importantly how will the finished structure affect the seawatching!!?

Just to add a snippet of bird related info, four nice speckly juvenile Stonechats were on Axe Cliff on Thursday and they looked just like this:

Little Bittern

Yesterday Bun and I went to Walton Heath on The Somerset Levels hoping to see the Little Bittern. Unfortunately we didn't leave Seaton as early as we usually do and when we arrived the bird hadn't been seen for over an hour after having been showing well all morning. It was almost another five hours until we saw it. Still, in the meantime we enjoyed superb views of at least two Bitterns, several Hobbies, and two Black Terns. Later on in the day, after seeing the Little Bittern for the first time we also had great views of a lovely Barn Owl, which was a rather unexpected bonus. After about four hours the majority of birders realised that we were watching in the wrong spot because apparently the Little Bittern could be heard singing on another part of the reserve. Once at the revised site we soon heard the birds unusual 'song', it sounded a bit like a dog with laryngitis! We were eventually treated to a fabulous flight view as it crossed almost directly overhead. We had several more flight views too and also a good if brief perched view or two. A really wacky little bird, certainly well worth the five hour wait during which I became so hungry I was in danger of fainting and I resorted to eating hawthorn leaves!! This tided me over until I could get to the car where I had a bag of grapes :-( - I really should have took some packed lunch! Unfortunately I couldn't get any photos as the views were rather brief and I was too busy enjoying them anyway. Steve (who arrived later as we were leaving) got some more prolonged views and got some photos too, which may be on his blog soon, possibly? Here's a photo showing the type of view we enjoyed for the vast majority of the seven hours we were there:

It's in there somewhere

A few of the happy faces after the 4;50 flight view.

I decided to record the birds 'song' for posterity by taking a bit of video footage. A while after I started recording, a man standing next to me said in a load voice "That's a good idea, getting the call on video!" and proceeded to noisily unzip several compartments of his camera bag. How thoughtful! Anyway here's the finished article. If you turn the sound up high you can hear the 'weeroofing' of the bird- just about . Try to ignore the talking and' zip action', if you can.

I really don't like to blog about a stunning rare bird without having at least some sort of effort at a photo to show you. To remedy this I've decided to put on this uncannily accurate 'artist's impression' (the word artist is used in its loosest possible sense here!): I wonder why I don't keep a notebook!?

Little Bittern in flight at Walton Heath.
It looked EXACTLY like this!