28 Jun 22

Priorslee Lake and The Flash

10.0°C > 15.0°C: Broken medium-level cloud dispersed leaving patchy high cloud. Lower cloud developing after 08:00 and mainly overcast by the time I departed. Moderate SE wind increasing fresh at times. Very good visibility.

Sunrise: 04:48

* = a photo today

Priorslee Lake: 04:40 – 05:40 // 06:45 – 09:30

(149th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- What seemed to be a noisy family party of Jays along the North side.
- The Cetti's Warbler may well have gone.
- A Sedge Warbler again doing its dancing display flight along the South side. Another was singing intermittently from cover at the West end.

Birds noted flying over here:
- 10 Feral Pigeons: two groups
- 16 Wood Pigeons
- 2 Cormorants: together
- 12 Jackdaws
- 6 Rooks

Hirundines etc. noted:
- 10 Swifts
- 2 House Martins

Warblers noted (figures in brackets relate to singing birds):
- 10 (9) Chiffchaffs
- 2 (2) Sedge Warblers
- 10 (6) Reed Warblers
- 10 (9) Blackcaps
- 1 (1) Garden Warbler again
- 1 (1) Common Whitethroat

Counts from the lake area:
- 2 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- 12 (9♂) Mallard
- 3 Moorhens
- 31 + 24 juvenile Coots
- 7 Great Crested Grebes again
- 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls: both adults; separately and briefly

Noted on / around the street lamp poles pre-dawn:
- *1 Willow Beauty moth (Peribatodes rhomboidaria)
- *2 male Opilio canestrinii harvestmen

Noted later:

New for this year:

Butterflies:
- *Comma (Polygonia c-album) (first imago)

Hoverflies:
- *Barred Ant-hill Hoverfly (Xanthogramma citrofasciatum)

Flies:
- *unidentified flesh fly in the genus Sarcophagidae

Repeat sightings:

Butterflies:
- *Large Skipper (Ochlodes sylvanus)
- *Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus)
- Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)

Moths:
- Common Marble (Celypha lacunana)
- *Garden Grass-veneer (Chrysoteuchia culmella)

Bees, wasps etc.:
- Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)
- Common Wasp (Paravespula vulgaris)

Hoverflies:
- Bumblebee Cheilosia (Cheilosia illustrata)
- Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus)
- Tapered Dronefly (Eristalis pertinax)
- Tiger Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus)
- Chequered Hoverfly (Melanostoma scalare)
- Dead-head Hoverfly (Myathropa florea) [Batman Hoverfly]
- *Common Twist-tail (Sphaerophoria scripta) [was Long Hoverfly]
- *Pellucid Fly [or Pied Plumehorn] (Volucella pellucens)

Dragon/Damselflies
- Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)
- Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
- unidentified hawker-type

Other flies:
- Lucilia sp. greenbottle
- Black Snipefly (Chrysopilus cristatus)
- *Semaphore fly Poecilobothrus nobilitatus

Beetles:
- pollen beetles as usual.
- 7 Spot Ladybird (Coccinella 7-punctata)

Bugs:
- *Common Green Shieldbug (Palomena prasina)

Snails etc.:
- White-lipped Snail (Cepaea hortensis)

Flowers:
- *Black Medick (Medicago lupulina)
- *Cleavers (Galium aparine)
- *Goat's-beard or Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon (Tragopogon pratensis minor): seed head only

This morning's sunrise was well worth getting up for. Slightly too early for me to get it at its best reflected in the lake. This is what it looked like through the new fence around the football field as I parked my car.

This is what it looked like when I scampered(?) down to the lake-side.

I hope this Dunnock is OK. It seemed rather lethargic though it did eventually fly off strongly. The scruffy-looking flanks are probably signs of post-breeding moult and that may be why it was none too perky.

This is the first female Large Skipper butterfly (Ochlodes sylvanus) I have noted this year. Females have no scent gland in the forewing. It also seems to have more extensive and contrasting dark areas along the wing edge. I don't know whether that is a characteristic of females, an indication this is a freshly emerged individual or just normal variability.

I could not see why this Ringlet butterfly (Aphantopus hyperantus) was not showing the rings of the underwing. Only when I looked at the photo did I realise that it was sitting with its wings drooped and I was looking on the top of the wing with just two indistinct marks on the hindwing visible.

A very smart Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album).

A Garden Grass-veneer moth (Chrysoteuchia culmella). Well it has the 'grass' bit right. I bet it gets good reception on those antennae.

A Willow Beauty moth (Peribatodes rhomboidaria). Moth species #48 here this year (though I have already recorded it at The Flash)

This rather furry-looking hoverfly sent me back to scour the literature. I knew it was a female Eristalis but was it really 'just' a Tapered Dronefly (E. pertinax)? A paper in a recent edition of British Wildlife suggested that this species is less abundant between June and mid-August. The photo clearly shows the diagnostic leg-pattern of this species so it must be furry because it is a fresh specimen.

One of the smaller and daintier hoverflies is this Common Twist-tail (Sphaerophoria scripta) [formerly known as Long Hoverfly]

This Pellucid Fly [or Pied Plumehorn] (Volucella pellucens) is anything but dainty. This one seems to have been in the wars with very ragged wings.

I think this is my first-ever Barred Ant-hill Hoverfly (Xanthogramma citrofasciatum). It differs from the similar Superb Ant-hill Hoverfly (Xanthogramma pedissequum) in that the upper of the three yellow bands on the abdomen is not obviously triangular in shape and the dark cloud in the wing is less contrasting. This group of hoverflies has longer antennae than all other hoverflies, indeed longer than most flies and almost as long as some bees.

A male Semaphore fly Poecilobothrus nobilitatus. It is the males that show the white wing-tips. The eyes and thorax show green or orange tones depending on the angle of the light.

From this angle the thorax is bright green.

And this angle shows how hairy it is. I love those antennae.

Another in the occasional series of 'exciting-looking flies'. This one of the flesh flies in the genus Sarcophagidae though which is not possible to determine which specific species it might be from a photo. Most species in this group lay their eggs in carrion, dung or other decaying material, all part of nature's recycling processes.

This Common Green Shieldbug (Palomena prasina) seems to have lost one of its antennae.

When I found one of these harvestmen a few days ago I noted it as a female Leiobunum rotundum. When I found these two together I wondered whether it was likely two females would sit like this. I think the dark saddle extends too far at both ends for that species and although not very clear in the photo I think the trochanters (the 'sockets' that the legs appear to plugged in to) are pale. I now think these are two male Opilio canestrinii harvestman (females show white faint banding across their saddle). They are doing their best to hide against an old sign on one of the lamp posts.

A rather better photo of the flowers of Black Medick (Medicago lupulina) than I took a week ago. Then the flower was on the dam-top and was suffering from trampling. This one was growing in the long grass.

The tiny inconspicuous flowers of Cleavers (Galium aparine). A plant with many vernacular names one of which is sticky willie. The numerous hairs that so easily attached themselves to whatever passes are easy to see.

The very distinctive seed-head ('clock') of Goat's-beard or Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon (Tragopogon pratensis minor).

(Ed Wilson)

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The Flash: 05:45 – 06:40

(145th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- The Peacock was yet again waking the neighbourhood at 05:45.
- Puzzling discrepancy in geese numbers with c.50 fewer Canadas and c.15 more Greylags. I have seen no evidence that any of the geese can fly at the moment so all rather confusing.
- The brood of two growing Mallard ducklings with an adult duck again. A trio of apparently full-grown youngsters staying together.

Birds noted flying over here:
- 6 Jackdaws

Hirundines etc. noted:
- 1 Swift
- 2 House Martins

Warblers noted (figures in brackets relate to singing birds):
- 2 (2) Chiffchaffs
- 1 (1) Blackcap only

Noted on / around the water:
- 144 Canada Geese
- 1 Canada x Greylag Goose
- 67 Greylag Geese exactly
- 7 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- *20 (15♂) + 5 (2 broods) Mallard
- 1 all-white duck (Aylesbury Duck)
- 13 (11♂) Tufted Duck
- 7 + 6 (5 broods) Moorhens
- 18 + 9 (5 broods) Coots
- 3 Great Crested Grebes

Noted on / around the street lamp poles
- 1 male Opilio canestrinii harvestman

I reckon these are three Mallard from the same brood that are now more or less full-grown but staying together. By now it should be possible to sex them from bill colour but only one of the bills is clear enough here. The right-most bird shows extensive orange suggesting it is a duck. They all paddled away from me and refused to show their bills more clearly.

(Ed Wilson)

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Between the lake and The Flash:

- One adult and two juvenile Moorhens at the lower pool.

also
- 1 Small Grey moth (Eudonia mercurella)
- *1 Common Shrew (Sorex araneus) dead on the path

The dead Common Shrew (Sorex araneus). It had a nasty wound on the other side. I am not sure what would have done that and left the dead animal behind.

(Ed Wilson)

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In the Priorslee Avenue tunnel:

- *1 Willow Beauty moth (Peribatodes rhomboidaria)
- the usual few midges of various sizes.

A very different looking Willow Beauty moth (Peribatodes rhomboidaria) sitting at an unhelpful location on the roof of the tunnel.

(Ed Wilson)

NOTE

Ed Wilson visited Gronant in North Wales a couple of times in early June. His wonderful photos of the Little Terns there can be found HERE.

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On this day can be found via the yearly links in the right-hand column.

Sightings from previous years without links are below

2009

Priorslee Lake

Yellow Wagtail

(Ed Wilson)

2006

Priorslee Lake

Common Tern

(Ed Wilson)