19 Jul 24

Priorslee Balancing Lake and The Flash

15.0°C > 19.0°C: Clear apart from some patches of thin high cloud A light southerly breeze. Very good visibility.

Sunrise: 05:10 BST

* = a species photographed today
! = a new species for me here this year
!! = a new species for me in Shropshire

Priorslee Balancing Lake: 04:55 – 05:55 // 07:00 – 09:25

(157th visit of the year)

Bird Notes
*Best today were two Common Terns that circled over the lake once at 08:20, leaving to the South.

Other bird notes:
- all four Mute Swans are still present. I did not get a very clear view to read the Darvic ring but 'our' blue ringed cob seemed to be with an unringed bird. However for much of the time all four birds were staying apart from each other.
- at 05:45 there were no gulls on the football field. The grass there was mown yesterday. Has that affected the food source?
- six adult Great Crested Grebes were noted: no juvenile was seen.

Counts of birds noted flying over:
- 2 Canada Geese: outbound together
- 4 Greylag Geese: outbound together
- 2 Stock Doves: together
- 204 Wood Pigeons
- 1 Herring Gull
- 10 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- 30 Jackdaws
- 10 Rooks

Hirundines etc. noted:
- 2 Swifts
- 3 Barn Swallows
- 2 House Martins

Warblers noted (the figure in brackets relates to birds heard singing):
NB: song fading fast
- 10 (3) Chiffchaffs
- *10 (6) Reed Warblers
- 8 (4) Blackcaps
- 1 (1) Common Whitethroat
'nominal' warbler:
- no Goldcrests

Counts from the lake area:
- 2 Canada Geese: arrived
- 4 Mute Swans
- 13 (?♂) Mallard
- 4 + 3 (1 brood) Moorhens
- 25 + 5 (4 broods) Coots
- 6 Great Crested Grebes
- 4 Black-headed Gulls
- 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- *2 Common Tern: briefly
- 1 Grey Heron

Noted on the street lamps poles pre-dawn:

Moths:
- *1 !!Double Orange-spot Pammene aurana [Orange-spot Piercer]

Spiders:
- 1 spider Clubiona sp.
- *1 probable Common Candy-striped Spider-type Enoplognatha ovata or similar

Other things
- 1 Common Shiny Woodlouse Oniscus asellus

Noted later:
Despite (because of?) the warm sunshine there were very few insects about. The damselflies were in 10s rather than 100s with almost no hoverflies seen. There were at least five Green-veined White butterflies which was welcome (unless you are growing cabbages)

Butterflies:
- Green-veined White Pieris napi
- Ringlet Aphantopus hyperantus
- Meadow Brown Maniola jurtina
- Gatekeeper Pyronia tithonus

Moths:
- Pale Straw Pearl Udea lutealis
- Shaded Broad-bar Scotopteryx chenopodiata

Bees, wasps etc.:
- *Andrena mining bee possibly Short-fringed Mining Bee A. dorsata
- *Honey Bee Apis mellifera
- Garden Bumblebee Bombus hortorum
- *Common Carder Bee Bombus pascuorum

Hoverflies:
The first name is that used by Stephen Falk. The name in square brackets is that given by Obsidentify or other sources if different. Scientific names are normally common. The species are presented in alphabetic order of those scientific names.
- Common Dronefly Eristalis tenax
- Chequered Hoverfly Melanostoma scalare [Long-winged Duskyface]
- Pellucid Fly Volucella pellucens [Pied Plumehorn]

Damsel-/dragon-flies:
- Brown Hawker Aeshna grandis
- Common Blue Damselfly Enallagma cyathigerum

Other flies:
- *only unidentified flies noted

Bugs etc.:
- none

Beetles:
- Alder Leaf Beetle Agelastica alni: larvae
- *False Blister Beetle Oedemera lurida or O. virescens
- Swollen-thighed Beetle Oedemera nobilis
- *Spotted Longhorn Beetle Rutpela maculata

Molluscs:
- White-lipped Snail Cepaea hortensis

Spiders etc.:
- *probable Common Candy-striped Spider-type Enoplognatha ovata or similar

New flowers noted:
None

At last: a decent sunrise.

One of the two Common Terns that visited briefly. An Arctic Tern would show longer tail-streamers and only a thin dark trailing edge to the under-wing.

Here is the other one. Here you can see the bill is orange (with a hard to see black tip). On Arctic Tern the bill is blood red.

The bill is longer and thinner too, though hard to judge on a single bird.

A Reed Warbler buried in the vegetation.

It wasn't singing. With a dark eye it is an adult and so likely a female.

 It would not show any more of itself.

A new Shropshire moth for me amongst the detritus at the top of a street lamp pole: a Double Orange-spot Pammene aurana [previously known as Orange-spot Piercer]. Reported as "common" in the moth field guide though few records in the "flying tonight" section of the West Midlands Moths web site.

Today's bee puzzle. An Andrena mining bee possibly Short-fringed Mining Bee A. dorsata. Most mining bees are single brooded and fly only in Spring and early Summer. This is one of the species that are bivoltine so is on the wing at this date. I'll ask the Shropshire bee recorder.

A Honey Bee Apis mellifera on White Clover Trifolium repens.

A Common Carder Bee Bombus pascuorum tucks in to a flower of Meadow Vetchling Lathyrus pratensis.

Today's unknown hairy fly!

I was puzzled by this. Obsidentify suggested one of the False Blister Beetles Oedemera lurida or O. virescens but do beetles show red bodies? I wondered about a species of saw fly but the antennae look too long. It took much searching on the internet for a photo of these beetles taken at this angle to prove Obsidentify was correct.

No mistaking this splendid beetle: a Spotted Longhorn Beetle Rutpela maculata.

Several of them were together.

This, on a street lamp pole before dawn, is probably Common Candy-striped Spider-type Enoplognatha ovata or similar. The species involved in this group are hard to separate. Doesn't have candy stripes though.

This seems to be a spider from the same group, crawling across my fingers.

(Ed Wilson)

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In the Priorslee Avenue tunnel:

Moths:
- *1 Brown House-moth Hofmannophila pseudospretella
- *1 probable Common Pug Eupithecia vulgata

Another Brown House-moth Hofmannophila pseudospretella that isn't in your house.

A probable Common Pug Eupithecia vulgata though the flight period for this species is mainly over and it looks strangely rufous. I'll get it checked with the Shropshire recorder.

(Ed Wilson)

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The Flash: 06:00 – 06:55

(160th visit of the year)

Bird notes:

Bird(s) noted flying over here:
None

Hirundines etc. noted:
- 2 Swifts
- 1 House Martin

Warblers noted (the figure in brackets relates to birds heard singing):
- 6 (2) Chiffchaffs
- 4 (4) Blackcap
'nominal' warbler:
- 1 (1) Goldcrest

Noted on / around the water:
- 147 Canada Geese
- 47 Greylag Geese
- no Canada x Greylag Goose
- 2 + 3 (1 brood) Mute Swan
- 23 (?♂) Mallard
- 25 (?♂) Tufted Duck
- 5 + 3 (3 broods) Moorhens
- 58 + 5 (3 broods) Coots
- 3 Great Crested Grebes

Noted elsewhere around The Flash:

Moths:
- 1 Garden Grass-moth Chrysoteuchia culmella [was Garden Grass-veneer]
- 1 Tawny Grey Eudonia lacustrata [was Little Grey]
- *1 !Garden Carpet Xanthorhoe fluctuata

Spiders, Harvestmen etc.
- *1 harvestman Dicranopalpus ramosus/caudatus

A not very good photo of a Garden Carpet moth Xanthorhoe fluctuata. A common-enough species though I don't record it every year.

Trying to be camouflaged on a lichen-covered street lamp pole was this harvestman Dicranopalpus ramosus/caudatus. Visual separation of these two species has yet to be worked out after the discovery of a second species recently.

(Ed Wilson)

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Sightings from previous years

2011
Priorslee Lake
4 Common Sandpiper
Female Ruddy Duck
(John Isherwood)

2006
Priorslee Lake
A male Cockatiel
1 drake Ruddy Duck
(Ed Wilson)