11 Jul 22

Priorslee Lake and The Flash

14.0°C > 19.0°C: Fine and clear with just a wisps of very high cloud. Almost calm. Very good visibility.

Sunrise: 04:59 BST

photos from three days are included today: * = a photo from today

Priorslee Lake: 04:45 – 05:40 // 06:35 – 07:55

(158th visit of the year)

An abbreviated visit to avoid the heat

Bird notes:
- The Great Crested Grebe nest in the NW area seems to be no more: two adults were close-by but I could not see the platform they built.
- A Common Whitethroat was heard scolding from their nesting area after having been quiet and unseen for some days. I did not see it, neither did I hear it again.

Birds noted flying over here:
- 1 Feral Pigeon
- 2 Stock Doves: together
- 33 Wood Pigeons
- 3 Black-headed Gulls
- 2 Herring Gulls
- 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- 23 Jackdaws
- 27 Rooks

Hirundines etc. noted:
- 7 Swifts: at least
- >2 House Martins: adult(s) and begging juvenile(s) heard high overhead but not located

Warblers noted (figures in brackets relate to singing birds):
- 7 (7) Chiffchaffs
- *2 (1) Sedge Warblers still
- 8 (5) Reed Warblers
- 4 (3) Blackcaps
- 1 (0) Common Whitethroat

Counts from the lake area:
- 2 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- 15 (?♂) Mallard
- 2 Moorhens again
- 55 adult and juvenile Coots: another low count
- 7 Great Crested Grebes
- 8 Black-headed Gulls: all adults: none on the football field
- 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull: adult
- 1 Grey Heron
- 1 Kingfisher again

Noted on / around the street lamp poles pre-dawn:
- 1 ichneumon sp.
- 1 Bridge Orb-web Spider (Larinioides sclopetarius)
- a pair of Leiobunum rotundum harvestman

Noted later:

Another shorter than usual visit

New for this year:

Moths:
- Shaded Broad-bar (Scotopteryx chenopodiata); Flew off before I could photograph it.

and:

- *unidentified caterpillar

Repeat sightings:

Butterflies:
- Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)

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

Bees, wasps etc.:
- Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)

Hoverflies:
- Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus)
- Tapered Dronefly (Eristalis pertinax)

Dragon/Damselflies
- Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)

Unusual flies:

None

Beetles:
-Common Red Soldier Beetle (Rhagonycha fulva)

Snails / Slugs etc.
- White-lipped Snail (Cepaea hortensis)

The best sunrise of all three days was this morning. Not exactly exciting.

Just two of the four Common Sandpipers that were present for a while on Sunday. I was looking in to the light. There was no possibility of repositioning to get better lighting.

It was not exactly singing with gusto but at least this Sedge Warbler was trying. Many warblers are now quiet.

There was just not enough light at 05:30 in Teece Drive to 'freeze' this Jay that was on the footpath. I hope it is a trick of the light but the feet look deformed to me.

Bathed in early morning light is a juvenile Starling moulting in to first year plumage. At this age the colour at the base of the bill cannot be used to sex the bird. On first year birds the spots tend, as here, to be heart-shaped. Adult birds have more V-shaped spots.

I mentioned a few days ago that House Sparrows are regular on the dam face and seem to be commuting from and to the colony in Teece Drive. Here is a male on just such an expedition. He seems to have collected two yet-to-emerge damselflies.

A Saturday photo from the boxing ring' on the dam of a Grey Wagtail. The black on the throat indicates it is either a male or, just possibly, an older female. These sometimes acquire male-type plumage. All rather faded here after a busy breeding season. It will soon start to moult in to a fresh plumage. I definitely get the impression I am being watched.

A magnificently fresh Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album).

A different individual from a different perspective.

Suffering a bit from over-enlargement is what I believe to be a Bird-cherry Ermine moth (Yponomeuta evonymella). There are several similar species and the arrangement of the black spots is not a 100% reliable guide to the species. I found this on a lamp pole on Saturday.

There was something about cherries on Saturday. My find of the day was this, my first ever, Cherry-fruit Moth (Argyresthia pruniella). There are a number of cherry trees nearby which no doubt helps to explain these sightings. I would have liked a side-on photo as well but this tiny moth decided against it and flew off.

For those who are still of the opinion that all moths are brown here is something different. It was on a lamp pole, also on Saturday. It is a Common Emerald (Hemithea aestivaria). As that epithet implies it is a common moth though I have not seen one for several years.

And here is a view of the upper wing. A Garden Grass-veneer moth (Chrysoteuchia culmella) provides company.

A larvae of something or other. The very few prolegs visible suggest it a moth caterpillar rather than a sawfly larva. But which species?

A close-up of a Honey Bee (Apis mellifera).

With no visible means of support is this Bridge Orb-web Spider (Larinioides sclopetarius). If you look really hard two of the legs are certainly attached to a web.

A pair of Leiobunum rotundum harvestman. The female is the one with the black saddle. The shape of the dark marking distinguishes it from L blackwalli where the saddle widens towards the rear and ends abruptly. Unaccompanied males are harder to identify – the ring around the eye is crucial. We do not need to see that here.

Last Friday I photographed Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) at The Flash and remarked that I had never seen it at the lake. I have now! I located this in the hedge between the Holy Trinity Academy and the football field.

"Aircraft of the day" from Saturday. This is an old Airbus A300B4-622R freighter operated by ASL Airlines Ireland on behalf of DHL: hence the livery. It was flying from Dublin to the DHL air freight hub at Liege in Belgium, close to the German border. The airframe is 32 years old and was originally a passenger aircraft delivered to EgyptAir.

And this morning's "aircraft of the day". This a Jet2 Holidays Boeing 737 800 series flying from Edinburgh to Reus in the Catalonia region of Spain. Jet2 Holidays aircraft have the blue and orange livery seen here. This 12-year old aircraft was bought by the ill-fated Norwegian Air Shuttle. ON their demise Jet2 snapped it up to replace some of their older 300 series aircraft. I am always surprised that Boeing 737s have no fairing over the retracted main under carriage. I am sure the aerodynamicists have used their slide-rules to show this doesn't matter. Perhaps it is off-set by the weight-saving?

(Ed Wilson)

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The Flash: 05:45 – 06:30

(154th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- One of the Tufted Ducks flew off East.
- No sign of yesterday's Little Grebe.

Birds noted flying over here:
- 1 Jackdaw yet again

Hirundines etc. noted:
- 2 Swifts in the far distance over St Georges

Warblers noted (figures in brackets relate to singing birds):
- 4 (2) Chiffchaffs
- 4 (3) Blackcaps

Noted on / around the water:
- 198 Canada Geese
- 1 Canada x Greylag Goose
- 65 Greylag Geese
- *5 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- 26 (?♂) Mallard only: no ducklings seen
- 1 all-white duck (Aylesbury Duck)
- 17 (?♂) Tufted Duck
- 6 + 4 (? broods) Moorhens
- 18 + 16 (? broods) Coots
- 1 Great Crested Grebe: only the bird on the nest noted.
- 1 Black-headed Gull: my first post-breeding record here.

Noted on / around the street lamp poles
- 1 black ant sp.!

The Mute Swan family.

One of the cygnets in close-up. It looks more furry than covered in feathers. It is rather soggy from upending to reach food.

Sunday's Little Grebe in distant silhouette only. When I moved around to the opposite side of the water it was even further away and hiding among the geese.

It is not often I get a chance for a side-on view of a Garden Grass-veneer moth (Chrysoteuchia culmella). This one was resting across a lamp pole and shooting directly upwards from against the pole gave this result. It is a reasonably fresh specimen with the diagnostic U-shaped cross-line toward the wing tip clearly visible. Also still mostly visible is the gold cilia (the extreme tip of the wing). This quickly wears off.

This beetle was on a lamp pole on Saturday morning. At the time I thought the shape reminiscent of a click beetle but I am not now quite so sure. All the photos I can find of this group of 69(!) species show the elytra (wing cases) to be stippled longitudinally whereas this looks more randomly patterned. I cannot see the antennae which might have provided a better clue.

(Ed Wilson)

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Between the lake and The Flash:

- One Mallard on the lower pool again.
- Moorhen(s) yet again heard only at the upper pool.
- One adult and two juvenile Moorhens at the lower pool.
- A Blackcap calling alongside the lower pool.

(Ed Wilson)

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In the Priorslee Avenue tunnel:

- nothing of note

On Saturday I found this Small Fan-footed Wave moth (Idaea biselata) on the roof. You would think looking at the markings they would have named it a Single-dotted Wave but that name has already been applied to Idaea dimidiata which, confusingly, does not obviously have a single dot anywhere.

Sunday's moth in the tunnel, on the wall, was this Bee Moth (Aphonia sociella). A rather worn specimen with a bare head. Another common-enough moth that I have not seen for at least eight years.

(Ed Wilson)

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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

2013

Nedge Hill

Redstart

(John Isherwood)

2008

Priorslee Lake

Sandwich Tern

Common Tern

(Ed Wilson)

2007

Priorslee Lake

5 Shelduck

(Ed Wilson)