11 Sep 25

Priorslee Balancing Lake only

11.0°C > 15.0°C: Broken cloud with a few passing showers – mostly passing to the North. Fresh south-westerly wind. Good visibility.

Sunrise: 06:38 BST

* = a species photographed today
$ = my first sighting of the species for this year
$$ = my first ever recorded sighting of the species in the area

Other commitments this morning so no visit to The Flash

Priorslee Balancing Lake: 05:20 – 09:35

(219th visit of the year)

Bird notes:
At last: a new bird species for my lake year list. My first addition for nearly three months! A Tawny Owl was calling from the Ricoh copse area as I checked out the inhabitants of the Priorslee Avenue Tunnel. Species #98 here for me in 2025.

Other bird notes:
- four visiting Mute Swans to start. After some chasing around a trio departed with the residents then forcing the remaining bird out of the water and in to the south-east copse for a while.
- Mallard were the only ducks noted today.
- five Great Crested Grebes noted. One a fully-grown but still showing faint head stripes.
- 65 of the Black-headed Gulls were counted on the football field c.07:00. It seems the recent rain means the conditions are now favourable for these to feed here.
- very few large gulls seen.
- I am not sure why the Coot numbers are declining. Usually birds arrive for the Winter post-breeding. Many of those that remain have abandoned the floating areas of weed and are now favouring the south-west grass. Perhaps, as with Black-headed Gulls, the rain has enlivened the food supply on the grass.
- there did not seem to be any hirundine passage this morning. A party of about half-a-dozen Barn Swallows were catching insects over the water for a while and a similar number of House Martins were high overhead.

Bird(s) noted flying over here:
- 6 Canada Geese: inbound together
- 42 Greylag Geese: a single outbound; 41 inbound together
- 1 Feral Pigeon
- 4 Stock Doves: together
- 55 Wood Pigeons
- 5 Black-headed Gulls
- 6 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- 113 Jackdaws
- 146 Rooks
- 4 Starlings: two duos
- 1 Pied Wagtail

Counts from the lake area:
- 14 Canada Geese: arrived together
- 6 Mute Swans: of these three departed
- 16 (>6♂) Mallard
- 10 Moorhens
- 119 Coots
- 5 Great Crested Grebes: see notes
- c.125 Black-headed Gulls: see notes
- 3 Herring Gulls
- 8 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- *1 Cormorant: arrived
- 1 Grey Heron: arrived 06:10

Hirundines etc. noted:
- c.6 Barn Swallows
- c.6 House Martins

Warblers recorded (the figure in brackets is birds noted singing):
- 1 (1) Cetti's Warbler again
- 19 (5) Chiffchaffs
- *2 (0) Blackcaps

Noted on the West end street lamp poles around-dawn:
A stiff breeze and dew on the more sheltered poles kept the numbers down

Flies:
*1 female plumed midge Chironomus plumosus
*1 Long-legged fly from the Dolichopus family.

Spiders, harvestmen etc.:
*possible Lace-web spider Amaurobius fenestralis.

Noted elsewhere:

Butterflies:
- Green-veined White Pieris napi
- *Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta

Moths:
- none

Bees, wasps, etc.:
- Common Carder Bee Bombus pascuorum

Hoverflies:
- *Common Dronefly Eristalis tenax

Other flies:
- *Greenbottle Lucilia sp.
- *Flesh fly Sarcophaga sp., possibly S. carnaria
- a few other unidentified flies

Bugs:
- *Common Green Shieldbug Palomena prasina

Another day on and the Blood Moon continues to wane with more of its craters being exposed by the cross-lighting.

The sunrise at its best.

Here lighting up the in-coming shower that...

...produced this rainbow. Explain to me how my phone's camera has managed to bend the shape of the arc?

A Cormorant arrives. Some white on the belly so it is an immature. Perhaps third winter?

Long-tailed Tits are always worth a photo if you can catch one of these highly mobile sprites. Oddly this bird seemed to be on its own. They are usually in gangs, often reaching double-figures.

A pensive-looking male Blackcap.

Up close and personal.

In direct contrast with the Hawthorn berries "Robin red-breast" seems a misnomer. "Robin orange-breast" does not have the same ring about it.

The berry crop is the largest I can recall. Not just the Hawthorn shown here but also Blackthorn (Sloes), Rowan and, the now rotting, Blackberries.

"Give us a song". A Pied Wagtail obliges.

Another species always worth a photo: a Red Admiral butterfly Vanessa atalanta.

 Just one hoverfly noted today: this Common Dronefly Eristalis tenax.

One of many Greenbottles seen of several different sizes. Does that mean they were all Lucilia species?

A Flesh fly Sarcophaga sp., possibly S. carnaria. The unusual "tail" seems to be its hind legs held crossed and behind it.

I was only thinking yesterday that I had not seen many Common Green Shieldbugs Palomena prasina this year. And one pops up.

This is a female plumed midge Chironomus plumosus. She has simple antennae but shares the banded abdomen with the male.

A long-legged fly from the Dolichopus family. This shot was taken with camera flash which does hide some of the detail. However NatureSpot advises against identifying to species without using a microscope.

This spider hiding in the fold of a street lamp pole is possibly the Lace-web spider Amaurobius fenestralis.

Plane of the day. This is a Jet2 Airbus A321 flying...

...from Manchester to Oporto. Jet2 has flown a Boeing fleet for many years. It is now transitioning to become an operator of mainly new Airbus aircraft over the next five plus years as its mostly second-hand Boeings come to the end of their life. Here the first flight code is that used for all Air Traffic operations. EXS has as its origin Channel Express which was renamed Jet2 in 2006. The LS code is that used for passenger ticketing and originates from the postcode for Leeds where the company is based. The Air Traffic code (i.e. 3DN) is formatted so as to eliminate confusion with ATC when several airlines are concurrently flying with the same passenger code (i.e. 931)

(Ed Wilson)

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In the Priorslee Avenue tunnel:

Note: I visited here when dark at c.05:20 rather than c.06:30 as in previous days and weeks.

Moths: [45 species here before today; no addition]
none

Other flies:
2 moth flies Psychodidae sp. [Drain Fly or Owl Fly]
7 midges of various species

Arthropods:
6 White-legged Snake Millipedes Tachypodoiulus niger
2 Common Rough Woodlice Porcellio scaber

Spiders, harvestmen etc.:
*1 Garden Spider Araneus diadematus [Garden Cross Spider]
*3 Missing Sector Orb-web Spiders Zygiella x-notata [Silver-sided Sector Spider]
*1 unidentified spider.

More spider action in the tunnel. Well perhaps not "action" in this instance. A Garden Spider Araneus diadematus takes a break.

A side-elevation view of one of the Missing Sector Orb-web Spiders Zygiella x-notata.

While this one is devouring something that will not appear in my log of the insects here.

On the face of it this male (with large palps like boxing gloves) does not look hard to ID. Obsidentify was 100% sure but its suggestion was a 5mm money spider which this not. Google Lens had several suggestions, all New World species. So?

(Ed Wilson)

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2013
Priorslee Lake
2 Snipe
Wheatear
3 Raven
(John Isherwood/Ed Wilson)

2010
Priorslee Lake
1 Hobby
1 Sedge Warbler
3 Swift
2 Teal
1 Meadow Pipit
(John Isherwood)

2008
Priorslee Lake
Black Tern
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)

2007
Priorslee Lake
Kingfisher
(Ed Wilson)