Venus Pool - 20 Oct 18

Today I visited the public hides at the SOS Reserve of Venus Pool.

The surprise of the day was to find this Egyptian Goose. We see the rather strange eye-patch and the white panel in the wing that is so obvious when this species flies. Originally escapes / releases from wildfowl collections there is now a feral breeding population in the UK. This bird is not ringed, as birds in wildfowl collections are supposed to be, but whether it is truly ‘wild’ is open to conjecture.

Here you get 4 for the price of one. The smaller rufous-tinged Egyptian Goose has gone to sleep next to a sleeping Canada Goose while a Greylag Goose flaps to shake its feathers back in to shape following a preen. A Lapwing looks about showing why one of its other vernacular names is Green Plover.

The water level at Venus Pool is still low at the moment so most birds are rather far away for photography. This Grey Heron was fishing a bit closer.

And again.

Looking intently for its next meal.

Meanwhile the Little Egret is all dash and lunge. Note the yellow feet. On the closely-related New World Snowy Egret the yellow goes all the way up the back of the leg to the knee (well: ankle if we are anatomically correct).

A fine flying Cormorant. An adult judging by the all-black belly. Not sure why there are white feathers in the wing – a trick of the light on glossy feathers?

Not my best photo of flying Lapwings. Included here to show that other species attach themselves to Lapwing flocks – in the bottom right we see a Common Starling. Later in the season we could look for Golden Plover to join Lapwings.

Looking great in the afternoon Autumn sun this male Common (or Ring-necked) Pheasant. Yet to acquire the long tail of a breeding bird.

Magpie acting like an ox-pecker from Africa. The Hebridean Sheep seem rather sanguine about it all.

Not sure I would want a Magpie that close to my eye even if it was removing a tick.

One of the features of today’s visit was hundreds (if not thousands) of ladybirds. Ladybirds in unprecedented numbers. All those I checked were the invasive Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis). Here are two specimens.

And here is a third variant. The white ‘panda eyes’ seems to be a good feature to separate this in all its variants from ‘our’ ladybirds – and there are more than 20 of those.

(Ed Wilson)

The Flash - 27 Jun 18

Hurrah! At last the Pen has emerged with at least four cygnets 27 June 2018.

However, she has just dumped them on the island with some geese, and hared off after the cob.

Perhaps she is starving after her long confinement, and someone is feeding from the bridge. Not a very good start, but hasn't been a perfect mum in the past.

So relieved, after seeing her emerge chick less for a swim two days ago.

(Ann Dewhurst)

Newport Area - 10 Jun 18

Been out and about (with permission) on some farmland with a small pool close to Newport to see what I could find. Most of what is in these photos is pretty common at the moment and you should be able to hunt many of them down.

My first Meadow Brown butterflies of the year enjoying the white clover.

A Silver Y moth at rest: the name from the mark in the wing.

‘Only’ a Common Blue Damselfly but posed in good light how could I resist. Always surprised how hairy the bodies are.

A side on view of a male Black-tailed Skimmer showing the yellow markings along the side.

The usual view is a resting male from above when it looks blue.

The female Black-tailed Skimmer is mainly yellow with some black marks.

Note too the unmarked wings (apart from the small mark in the pterostigma at each wing-tip).

A female Black-tailed Skimmer in plan view.

The only Four-spotted Chaser I noted today. It was perched at some distance. The photo reveals the brown (almost reddish here) at the base of the wings and the small spot at the bend in each wing. Another hairy insect. The sexes are similar to look as but males are reported to sit, as this was doing, by the water looking for females. These stay away from water until they are ready to lay eggs.

Was lucky to get one shot with this passing dragonfly more or less in focus. It is a male Emperor Dragonfly and these blue-bodied / green-headed individuals patrol their territory for hours, darting around as they feed on the wing and chase all other dragonflies away.

Garden Bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) also enjoying the white clover.

A rather better photo of a male Oedemera nobilis beetle with its swollen hind femur – why?

I have no idea what this iridescent ‘thing’ is. Is it a bug and is that a face at the right hand end? It seems to be suspended on the ‘spikes’ of the leaves so it cannot weigh much.

It is also rather hairy. We could have an argument about whether it is green or blue! It is that colour that ‘depends’.

Tried pinching the leaves and confirmed these flowers are Scentless Mayweed (Matricaria perforata). In the closely-related Scented Mayweed (Matricaria chamomilla) the rays in the flowers should have down turned by now – and the stems smell strongly of chamomile if pinched.

(Ed Wilson)

Newport Area 2nd - 3rd June 2018

I have been out an about with the camera around some farm lanes near Newport recently. These photos are an amalgam of shots taken on late afternoon Saturday (2nd June): and early Sunday (3rd)

A rather scruffy-looking Buzzard.

A rather less-scruffy Buzzard.

A male Kestrel. Good to see this declining species still in the area.

What we could not see before was that this bird was carrying prey.

Looks like a bird it is carrying though can not make anything else out. Likely a nesting / unfledged bird as this species does not tend to hunt birds, preferring large insects, small lizards etc.

I make no excuses for the rather poor quality. I was using ‘sports mode’ to try to photograph the Barn Swallow coming down to drink – or so I thought. The camera reveals that it was actually diving in for an-on-the-go bath.

And here is proof it did not drown!

As an early nester Rooks enter the post-breeding moult early: this one is without a few primaries and secondaries.

A fly-past shows the effect of losing the inner primaries and outer secondaries on the shape of the wing trailing edge.

A Large White butterfly on Red Clover.

A quite splendid male Common Blue butterfly: more attractive with wings closed!

A skipper butterfly of course: but which? I can never remember. Large Skipper, as here, has the broad shading along the back of the wing – a thin narrow band on a Small or Essex Skipper. ‘Small’ and ‘Large’ are meaningless as the species are almost the same size. The mark in the middle of the wing – a scent mark (for giving or receiving?) indicates it is a male.

A more cooperative Timothy Tortrix (Aphelia paleana) moth than any at Priorslee Lake so fat. It shows the diagnostic yellow flush on the shoulder of what is otherwise a rather featureless moth.

One of a number of very similar moths but seems likely to be an Epiblema cirsiana (Knapweed Bell): the knapweed is about to flower.

A Silver Y moth: a very common immigrant, boosted in Autumn by local broods.

A female Black-tailed Skimmer. Only the males have black tails (and they have blue bodies).

Another specimen. This is only dragonfly with this build (skimmers / chasers) that has no colour in the wings (other than the small pterostigma near the wing-tips).

Unlike the unmarked wings of the Black-tailed Skimmer we see immediately why this is a Four-spotted Chaser. A female here.

The hoverfly Syrphus vitripennis.

A female or teneral Common Blue Damselfly.

A female Blue-tailed Damselfly of the form rufecens.

This is a female Oedemera nobilis beetle.

And here is the male that is unique in having a swollen hind femur.

The best I can do with this is a sawfly sp., possibly Tenthredo arcuata. Whatever it is covered in pollen from the buttercup.

A different specimen also covered in pollen.

And here it is with wings open.

I think Common Vetch (Vicia sativa) though as various vetches have been grown as fodder and this is farmland it could well be a hybrid.

Looking at the very fine leaves I am sure this is Scented Mayweed (Matricaria chamomilla). The flowers should soon downturn if my identification is correct. Corn Chamomile (Anthemis austriaca) is another possibility but usually has larger leaflets.

And the flowers being attended by a Greenbottle fly (Lucilia sp.).

Not a flower I am too familiar with: I suspect Bugloss (Anchusa arvensis).

This orchid is I think a Southern Marsh Orchid.

(Ed Wilson)