6 Aug 22

Priorslee Lake and The Flash

7.0°C > 16.0°C: Just thin high cloud patches. Calm start with light W wind later. Excellent visibility.

Sunrise: 05:37 BST

* = a photo from today

Priorslee Lake: 04:50 – 06:05 // 07:10 – 09:15

(167th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- My first large post-moult group of Canada Geese with 56 seen headed towards The Flash.
- The Common Sandpiper was heard only.

Birds noted flying over here:
- 67 Canada Geese: 11 outbound in three groups; 56 inbound together
- 2 Greylag Geese: duo inbound
- 1 Stock Dove
- 74 Wood Pigeons
- 11 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- 74 Jackdaws
- 20 Rooks

Hirundines etc. noted:
- 2 House Martins

Warblers noted (figures in brackets relate to singing birds):
- 1 (0) Cetti's Warbler
- 7 (0) Chiffchaffs
- 2 (0) Reed Warblers
- 5 (0) Blackcaps

Counts from the lake area:
- 8 Canada Geese: as yesterday – two arrived and were shortly followed by a group of six
- 2 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- 22 (?♂) Mallard
- 4 adult / juvenile Moorhens again
- 67 adult / juvenile Coots
- 1 Little Grebe again
- 7 + 3 (two broods) Great Crested Grebes
- 1 Common Sandpiper
- 36 Black-headed Gulls
- 7 Lesser Black-backed Gulls: adults, all briefly
- 1 Cormorant: arrived
- 1 Kingfisher

Noted on / around the street lamp poles pre-dawn:

Moths:
- *1 Red Underwing (Catocala nupta)

and:
- 3 Dicranopalpus ramosus/caudatus harvestman
- 3 Leiobunum rotundum harvestman

Noted later:

New for this year

Nothing

Repeat sightings:

Butterflies:
- Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)

Moths:
- Satin Grass-veneer (Crambus perlella)
- Common Grass-veneer (Agriphila tristella)
- *Clouded Border (Lomaspilis marginata)

Bees, wasps etc.:
- Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)
- Common Carder Bee (Bombus pascuorum)
- Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)

Hoverflies:
- Tapered Dronefly (Eristalis pertinax)
- Common Dronefly (Eristalis tenax)
- *Dead-head Hoverfly (Myathropa florea) [aka Batman Hoverfly]

Dragon/Damselflies
- Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)

The areas of thin high cloud gave colour to the sunrise. Here is the start.

The long view across the lake.

As the sun started to come up the colour faded.

Here the sun is about to poke out above the trees with several old vapour trails adding to the cloud.

This Clouded Border moth (Lomaspilis marginata) was an unusual daytime sighting sitting fully exposed on sun-lit leaves. Its is normally nocturnal.

Aside from the hawk-moths Red Underwing moths (Catocala nupta) are about the largest moth species in the area. I see one or more annually, often with the wings just held slightly apart to show how it got its vernacular name. This year it is moth species #71 here. Last year it was species #98, albeit a week later. My two weeks in the US will have exacerbated my already lower moth species total this year.

An upgrade to yesterday's photo of a Dead-head Hoverfly (Myathropa florea).

Aircraft of the day #1. This is a 16 year-old Air France Boeing 777 300 series some eight hours thirty minutes in to its flight from San Francisco's International Airport to Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. Not the most inspiring of liveries with just the colours of the French flag in stripes up the tail-fin. Forty minutes to go.

Hot on its heels was aircraft of the day #2. The red engines of the Virgin Atlantic livery are evident as is the billboard airline name under the forward fuselage. This Airbus 350 1000 series aircraft is almost three years old and here plying its trade between Orlando International Airport in Florida (for all things Disney) and London's Heathrow Airport. Unless you get your globe out and look at the Great Circle Routes you might be surprised to learn that this east coast US departure has taken only about one hour less to reach overhead than the Air France west coast departure when it takes at least four hours to fly across the US.

(Ed Wilson)

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The Flash: 06:10 – 07:05

(163rd visit of the year)

Bird notes:
- Another bumper count of Mallard. Where are they coming from?
- Also a large number of Coots. There may have been more as a large group was crammed along the edge of the island and almost impossible to count without access to higher magnification optics. I am not lugging my telescope just to count Coots!
- I only noted one adult Great Crested Grebe. I suspect the other adult and the juveniles might have been going around the island, staying out of my line of sight.
- The two Cormorants were together fishing in the water.

Birds noted flying over here:

None

Hirundines etc. noted:

None

Warblers noted (figures in brackets relate to singing birds):
- 3 (0) Chiffchaffs

Noted on / around the water:
- 21 Canada Geese
- no Greylag Geese
- 6 + 4 (1 brood) Mute Swans
- *38 (?♂) + 4 (1 brood) Mallard
- 1 all-white duck (Aylesbury Duck)
- 29 (?♂) Tufted Duck
- *10 adult / juvenile Moorhens again
- >45 adult / juvenile Coots
- no Little Grebe
- 1 Great Crested Grebe only
- *6 Black-headed Gulls
- 2 Cormorants
- 1 Grey Heron

Noted on / around the street lamp poles:
- 1 Dicranopalpus ramosus/caudatus harvestman

Just four Mallard ducklings remain, here with their mother.

Compare and contrast. Nearest the camera a juvenile Moorhen still to acquire the red shield of adult plumage. Behind it an adult Black-headed Gull with the head mostly having lost the dark markings. The folded wings are atypical as this bird is moulting some of its primaries as it acquired winter plumage.

Is this any better? A small number of flowering Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) not quite so precipitously over the water but still in the shade.

(Ed Wilson)

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Between the lake and The Flash:

- Moorhen(s) once again heard at the upper pool only.

and
- A Dicranopalpus ramosus/caudatus harvestman on one of the street lamp poles again

(Ed Wilson)

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In the Priorslee Avenue tunnel:

- 2 owl midges Psychodidae sp
- 1 Dicranopalpus ramosus/caudatus harvestman

(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

2012

Priorslee Lake

Green Sandpiper

(Ed Wilson)

2011

Nedge Hill

1 (imm/fem) Common Redstart

(John Isherwood)

2009

Priorslee Lake

Dunlin

(Ed Wilson)

2006

Priorslee Lake

2 Common Tern

(Merv)