Clouded yellows are here!

When it comes to migrant insects there may be some which are more beautiful, there may be some which are rarer, but to my mind there are none more evocative than the clouded yellow butterfly. I'll never forget my dad arriving home from a walk with my mum and immediately going to the butterfly identification book before announcing that they'd just seen at least 50 clouded yellows on the sea wall at Banks, Southport. A few days later I went myself and saw at least ten. That was 31st July 1983 and at the time I'd still never been abroad and I'd never seen them in the UK. These were the first clouded yellows that I'd ever seen and they made a huge impression on me.

I now know that they're pretty common in southern Europe, one of the commonest species in fact, and they're annual migrants to the UK, usually in small numbers to the south and east coast. I've see a few over the years, often in late summer / early autumn when I have been searching for birds at migration hotspots, but living in north west England I can go years without seeing one. I still consider them a very special sight and when they appear in numbers in our area it's an experience not to be missed. "Clouded yellow years" occur every now and then, 1983 must have been one, perhaps also 1992 when I counted 30 at St Bees Head in Cumbria, and it looks like 2026 will be the same. With heatwaves bringing easterly airflows there have been above average reports of species such as red admirals, painted ladies, hummingbird hawk-moths and migrant dragonflies, so it's not surprising that a few clouded yellows are here as well.

In clouded yellow years a few do turn up at suitable spots inland and over the past few days I've been seeing up to five at Bickershaw. It's wonderful to have them just 10 minutes down the road and be able to see them on a daily basis.

However, most reports recently have been from the coast and especially the sea wall north of Crossens, so on Saturday after a morning at Martin Mere I decided to reacquaint myself the butterfly at Banks. I parked at Old Hollow Farm and then walked along the sea wall towards Hesketh Out Marsh. It was a bit windier than I had expected, but even so there were plenty of butterflies on the wing including at least nine clouded yellows. 

It's great how sightings such as this can re-connect you with the past and bring memories flooding back, not just of my parents but also past twitches and holidays abroad. I could have watched those butterflies all day. Hopefully there will be more arriving before the end of the summer, because I can't get enough of them!

Clouded yellows always land with their wings closed, I've never seen one landed with its wings open and the open wing photos in this post are only possible because they are video grabs of a butterfly in flight. I suppose somebody with a much better camera than mine and with more patience could conceivably get a photo just as the butterfly lands or of a brief flick of the wings as it moves around a flower, and using photoshop could produce a good photo, but most mere mortals are never going to see a clouded yellow on a flower with it's wings open and I've long since stopped worrying about it!

Yellow wagtails and black-necked grebe, Pennington flash

Two juvenile yellow wagtails were on the sailing club foreshore this morning, another juvenile black-necked grebe in East Bay and a single green sandpiper in Ramsdales.

Yellow wagtails are not common visitors to the flash, being just about annual. I remember seeing small flocks on passage on the grass where the overflow car park is, but those days have long gone. 

Clouded yellows, Bickershaw

As I reported on Monday, the current run of high pressure and easterly winds is bringing plenty of migrant dragonflies and butterflies to the North West and perhaps the most iconic of the latter is clouded yellow. There's been a few reported locally and today we were delighted to find at least five at Bickershaw in the grasslands between Nevison's and New Water. 

I get really excited when I see this butterfly, there's just something very special about it. In flight they are really deep yellow with a black border to the upperwing, but I don't think I've ever seen one land with it's wings open. Still, the underwing is nice as well, I can see areas of pink, brown and black in the wings and a nice lime green eye.

Just as iconic amongst the migrant dragonflies is lesser emperor, and the two on the stock pond continue to show well.

Caspian tern, Budworth Mere

An adult Caspian tern was at Budworth Mere yesterday but disappeared by midday while I was still at Martin Mere. I wasn't too concerned about missing it because although they're great birds, it is quite a cosmopolitan species which I've seen all over the world on my travels, including Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, USA, Kuwait, Australia and New Zealand, plus I've previously seen a few in the UK including one in the North West at Leighton Moss. So I was very relaxed about it.... 

Then it reappeared this morning and I just dropped everything and went! Why the change in heart I can't say, I just felt like going and I had the time. I left home at 10:55, drove to Budworth Mere, saw the bird, watched it get flushed by a walker and I was home by 12:30. A ninety-five minute return journey!

The photos might be described as record shots by some, perhaps worse than record shots by others, but give me a break, the bird was nearly 400m distant in heat haze. As far as I'm concerned, they're awesome photos and I'm still waiting to see better 😆.

VisMig on Formby beach

I love a bit of visible migration and it was certainly happening at Formby beach on Saturday. I met up with Josh late morning and we walked down lifeboat road to the beach. The tide was receding so we walked out half a mile to the waters edge and then headed south towards Hightown, gradually getting further away from the shore as the tide retreated. Out this far there was a wonderfully cooling easterly breeze and it was a pleasure to be here. 

Once we got away from the Lifeboat road area the beach was deserted, not another person in sight. There were small groups of birds here and there, mainly gulls but also perhaps about 500 noisy sandwich terns including a few juveniles. Numbers of these terns will gradually build into August, and from ringing recoveries they are known to originate from colonies on Anglesey (Cemlyn Bay), Ireland and Cumbria. Otherwise it was very quiet, just a few common terns and hardly any waders.

The beach wasn't completely deserted though. There were loads of butterflies coming in off the sea and every one that I managed to identify was a red admiral, though there were probably also painted lady's involved as well. We saw a single hawker type dragonfly flying low over the beach a good three quarters of a mile offshore, but frustratingly it was silhouetted and flew into the sun before I could identify it, but it's tempting to think lesser emperor or Norfolk hawker given the numbers that are around at the moment. We also saw at least two moths, larger than silver y but not as big as a hawk-moth. As expected nothing landed so identifying individuals to species level as never going to be easy, and although they all made good progress inland, they were buffeted by the wind and following them in binoculars was very difficult.

When these migratory insects are blown west over the water by easterly winds such as we are currently experiencing, they compensate by angling their flight into the wind and returning to the mainland. It's a fabulous experience to walk through it as it's happening. 

Lesser emperors and ruddy darter, Bickershaw

It's been a good year so far for migrant dragonflies with lesser emperors and red-veined darters popping up in lots of places here in the North West. So far I've resisted the temptation to twitch lesser emperor, preferring instead to try to find one locally at Bickershaw, so I was made up today to find not one, but two on the stock pond in the north of the site. 

I've seen them before both in the UK and abroad but I'd forgotten how nice they are with that bright blue saddle and green eyes contrasting with the brown abdomen and thorax. A really special find, bringing my site total to 22 species. 

24 common scoter Pennington flash

A flock of 24 drake common scoter were found at the flash at 11:00 this morning and we're said to be very flighty, being frequently moved around the flash by yachts and other boats. I got there at 16:00 and expected them to have been flushed one too many times and be long gone, but remarkably they were still present at the western end. As I watched they were flushed by a canoe and landed in east bay, before being flushed again. The last I saw of them they were in the middle at 16:50 and the yachts were off the water. Hopefully they got some peace for a while before continuing their migration.

July is a classic time of year for flocks of males to appear at the flash on moult migration. This was the largest flock of males that I have seen here. I did see a flock of 36 a few years ago but that was in November and they were all females and 1st winter birds.

Quail, Martin Mere

It's been a great year so far for quail, with many singing males being reported. The Derwent Valley in Derbyshire reported 61 singing males about 10 days ago. Not quite so many in our area but still quite a few, so when one was reported singing distantly on Sunley's Marsh at Martin Mere on Wednesday, it seemed a good opportunity to add the species to my Martin Mere list. 

Of course one of the problems with quail is that they tend to sing mostly at dawn or dusk which is currently a full five hours before Martin Mere opens. However, Wednesdays bird was reported as singing at 13:00 from the Ron Barker hide so it was worth a go. On Thursday I saw plenty of other great birds on Vinson's but failed to hear quail so decided to try again and a bit earlier today. The plan worked and I managed to hear one within a few minutes of arriving. 

Obviously as expected I didn't see the quail, but there were at least two barn owls flying around plus the usual marsh harriers and various egrets, but no sign of any spoonbills. Perhaps most impressive, there were 11 green sandpipers with 9 on Vinson's and another 2 on Sunley's.

Egrets, herons and spoonbills on Vinson's marsh, Martin Mere

When I first visited Martin Mere 51 years ago with my dad, I would never have dreamt that I might one day see five species of heron plus spoonbills on Vinson's marsh, yet that's exactly what happened this morning. I counted four spoonbills, five great white egrets, six cattle egrets, five little egrets, two grey herons and a bittern all on view at the same time on one relatively small patch of open water on Vinson's. What my dad would have made of a scene like this I really can't imagine. More in line with what he would have expected, there were also four green sandpipers on Vinson's.

Meanwhile, on Sunley's, the marsh adjacent to Vinson's, there was another bittern and a hunting barn owl. Then a male marsh harrier appeared carrying food prompting five birds that looked like juveniles to fly up to it. The male dropped the food mid-air to one of the youngsters which caught it and the male headed off presumably to find food for the others.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Martin Mere is the best reserve in North West England by country mile.

Four spoonbills, two adults and two second calendar year birds.

Little terns, Pennington Flash

I was all set for going to Bickershaw this afternoon but then John Tymon found a couple of little terns on the spit so I ended up going back to the flash.

Another juv. black-necked grebe and a green sandpiper, Pennington Flash

This morning at the flash, a juvenile black-necked grebe was just outside Horrock's hide with a feeding frenzy of coots, mallard and swans. A green sandpiper was on the small scrape right outside the hide and at least five common sandpipers were on the spit or at the sailing club. A minimum of 10 common terns were present with at least one juvenile. It really does feel like autumn now, apart from the fact that the temperatures are due to touch 30'C this afternoon. Meanwhile, taking advantage of the building heat this morning, several small red-eyed damselflies were on the canal and the pond at the side of Ramsdales, along with their cousins red-eyed damselfly, a couple of emperors, brown hawkers and black-tailed skimmers.

 

It's been a good year for black-necked grebes at the flash, being present on at least18 days so far, with a minimum of 10 adults pre-breeding and two adults and five juveniles post breeding.