8 Oct 19

Priorslee Lake and The Flash

Priorslee Lake:  06:05 –09:05
The Flash:  09:10 – 10:05

10.0°C > 12.0°C:  Broken high cloud until after 09:30 when shower clouds from W. Calm start with light and eventually moderate S wind later. Very good visibility.

Sunrise: 07:22 BST

Priorslee Lake:  06:05 –09:05

(240th visit of the year)

Other bird notes from today:
- It is turning out to be a good year for Common Gulls. Today’s bird seemed to be a different first-winter bird.
- Once again the departing corvids behaved differently. None of the Jackdaws preceded the street-lights going out – normally this more or less signals the end of the passage. Fewer overall than in recent days. Then 15, in two groups, unusually over an hour behind the others. Again just two single Rooks.
- A single Redwing overhead at 07:10 and then a party of 11 flew W at 08:35. Also three in the W end trees at 08:45. My first migrant party of the season.

A belated visit to the ‘football’ field at 07:30 revealed very little: just 47 Black-headed Gulls, 12 Wood Pigeons and two Magpies. No Pied Wagtails. Wagtails had been seen and heard overhead previously and had possibly been flushed by the dogs present: though the gulls seemed content to be at the ‘other end’ of the grass.

Bird totals:

Birds noted flying over or flying near the lake:
- 1 Sparrowhawk
- 16 unidentified large gulls: too dark to ID
- 9 Feral Pigeons (3 groups)
- 36 Wood Pigeons
- 1 Collared Dove
- 86 Jackdaws
- 2 Rooks again
- 3 Skylarks
- 12 Redwings
- 10+ Pied Wagtails
- 7 Meadow Pipits

Warblers noted (singing birds):
- 1 (0) Chiffchaff only

Counts from the lake area:
- 2 + 5 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- 1 (1♂) Gadwall
- 14 (9♂) Mallard
- 17 (5♂) Tufted Ducks
- 1 Cormorant again
- 1 Grey Heron
- 2 Little Grebes
- 8 adult + 3 immatures + 9 juvenile (3 broods) Great Crested Grebes
- 8 Moorhens
- 131 Coots
- c.50 Black-headed Gulls
- 1 Common Gull: first-winter bird
- 14 Lesser Black-backed Gull: 10 of these first-winter birds
- 3 Herring Gulls: one of these a first-winter bird
- 1 Kingfisher

Pre-dawn sightings on the lamp poles:
- several presumed springtails of at least two species
- 1 cranefly, probably Limnophila schranki
- several flies of different species
- 1 Tetragnatha sp. spider
- 1 Leiobunum blackwalli harvestman
- 1 Odiellus spinosus harvestman

Later sightings:
- 1 small midge, apparently a female Chironomus plumosus (plumed midge)
- 2 Aegopinella species of glass snail. Probably Smooth Glass Snails (Aegopinella nitidula)

Some colour for a short while in this morning’s sunrise

An increase in the number of Tufted Duck this morning – perhaps some have moved from The Flash? Here are two ducks repositioning around the lake.

This immature Cormorant seems to visit most mornings and almost immediately hauls out on the same buoy. When there is a breeze ....

... the buoy gently spins around so we see the back as well.

One of the Great Crested Grebe families came closer today – the parents with their four stripe-faced youngsters. One of the adults seems quite bored with proceedings.

Always at extreme range today. Here is the first-winter Common Gull behind a first-winter Lesser Black-backed Gull. On the Common Gull note the rounded head, the dark eye, the dark tip to a rather weak-looking bill and extensive dark in the folded primaries and primary coverts.

Here is the same bird between two immature Herring Gulls. The dark mark across the bill of the left-hand bird invites confusion with vagrant Ring-billed Gull, but our bird is too large – Ring-billed Gull is scarcely larger than a Common Gull. The first-winter bird on the right is just showing some grey at the very top of the mantle.

The next installment of ‘the spider and the fly’. If you look hard there seems to be another, different, spider creeping in from the left. The spider looks to be one of the Tetragnatha group of stretch spiders. Beyond that ... As for the fly there are 100's to choose from.

It is hard to be certain about the pattern on the wing of this cranefly found on a lamp pole pre-dawn. I suspect it is Limnophila schranki

This tiny insect, also on a lamp pole pre-dawn, looks like a springtail. It would require a much better-lit photo to get any idea about the species.

Rather like #11 buses you wait a while and two come along together. This presumed springtail has even longer (proportionately) antenna and a rather more pointed body. Why am I finding so many springtails this year when I have never noted any before?

A rare day-time insect shot in October. I initially thought it was one of the plumed midges, though it seemed much smaller than those I typically see. The photo reveals that it does not have plumes. Research suggests that ‘no plumes’ means it is a female and that the only common species in which the female’s wings do not reach the tip of the abdomen is Chironomus plumosus. It still seems too small to me.

Doing her best to camouflage herself on the remains of an old sticker on a lamp pole is this female Leiobunum blackwalli harvestman (harvestwoman?)

The rather oddly-proportioned legs suggest this is the harvestman Odiellus spinosus.

This is one of the Aegopinella species of glass snails. Probably Smooth Glass Snail (Aegopinella nitidula).

Probably the same species, this specimen is tucked right in the base of a Convolvulus flower and covered in pollen from the stigma.

(Ed Wilson)

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The Flash:  09:10 – 10:05

(227th visit of the year)

Notes from here:
- Another decrease in the Tufted Duck numbers.
- Four Buzzards in the air together is not common at the times I usually visit.
- Two Skylarks flew SW singly: some 10 minutes later two flew N, also singly. Same two?
- a Grey Wagtail yet again.
Other things:
- 3 Dicranopalpus ramosus harvestmen
- 1 Leiobunum blackwalli harvestman
all these on the usual lamp pole. Also
- 1 Mottled Umber moth (Erranis defoliaria)
- 1 Common Darter dragonfly (rather late in the year for my first dragon/damsel-fly here!)
- 1 Tapered Drone Fly (Eristalis pertinax)
- 1 ‘greenbottle’ fly
- possible ‘cluster’ flies
- the web of what might be a Zygiella x-notata spider
- 1 White-lipped Snail (Cepaea hortensis)
with
- the same two fungus as yesterday in squirrel alley. Neither of these are in fact honey fungus (Armillaria sp.) and now that the small group has developed I think they may all be the same, unidentified, species anyway

Birds noted flying over / near The Flash:
- 2 Grey Herons
- 4 Common Buzzards
- 3 Jackdaws
- 1 Rook
- 4 Skylarks (see notes)
- 1 Meadow Pipit

Warblers noted (singing birds):
- 2 (1) Chiffchaffs

Counts from the water:
- 3 Mute Swans
- 63 Greylag Geese
- 34 Canada Geese
- 1 hybrid / feral goose
- 29 (18♂) Mallard
- 25 (7?♂) Tufted Duck
- 2 Great Crested Grebes still
- 2 Moorhens
- 19 Coots
- 11 Black-headed Gulls: two of these first-winter birds again

If I thought yesterday’s Mottled Umber moth (Erranis defoliaria) at the lake was rather poorly marked then how about this specimen. But then it is ‘mottled’ and it is ‘umber’ so perhaps that is a really good name for it.

The Ivy flowers are just beginning to open and I will soon be searching for my first Ivy Bees. Meanwhile here is a Tapered Drone Fly (Eristalis pertinax) sharing a flower-head with what looks to be a type of greenbottle fly. I did not notice the fly at the time so have no better photo of it.

If these are not ‘cluster flies’ they ought to be!

It is Autumn so we should be seeing plenty of webs. This could be the web of an Zygiella x-notata spider – it, characteristically, builds an orb web which has two sectors without connecting threads in one of the two upper corners. But then again where it chose to build its web just might have made it too hard to spin a complete web and it could therefore be done by another orb-web spider species.

So this will be a White-lipped Snail (Cepaea hortensis).

Here is the underside view of yesterday’s fungus that I suggested might be Honey Fungus. It isn’t because the stems do not have a ‘collar’. They do have a rather unusual ‘join’ between the stem and the top but this has not helped me with identification. Note the slug climbing the stem of the third from the left.

(Ed Wilson)

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On this day..........

2018
Priorslee Lake
Today's Sightings Here

2017
Priorslee Lake
Today's Sightings Here

2014
Priorslee lake
Today's Sightings Here

2013
Priorslee Lake
2 Wigeon
2 Kingfisher
5 Redwing (Celestica Site)
(John Isherwood)

2006
Priorslee Lake
51 Golden Plover
2 Siskins
8 Reed Buntings
(Ed Wilson)

2005
Priorslee Lake
45 Golden Plover
42 Lapwings
2 Wigeon
7 Pochard
6 Song Thrush
6 Redwings
3 Chiffchaffs
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)