Purple Gallinule and Lesser Yellowlegs

All the way from the Middle East came UK lifer number 378 - a Purple Gallinule at Saltney, near Chester!! What a cracking bird, fantasic colours, highly charismatic and so prehistoric looking you could easily imagine it walking around the feet of a Tyranausaurus Rex. It's like a gigantic Moorhen with feet so huge it gives the impression that it could easily walk over water itself. A real birder's bird!

And don't tell me it's non-migratory, BWP clearly states "as marshes dry out in summer, gradual withdrawal to permanent coastal lagoons........... returning late autumn when marismas reflooded after rain. This movement is believed largely on foot, crossing open ground at night."

So with this being the grey headed eastern race, this bird obviously started walking from Turkey sometime in 2008, made it to the channel coast in spring of this year, swam across and then walked up the M6 to Chester. It's so obvious how it got here, yet guess what those suits at the BOU will never accept it :-( Typical!.............. Suppose I'd better leave it off my list for now though :-(

What a bird!

The right hand photo is for size comparison with a wimpy Moorhen.

Fortunately, being at Chester, we were in pole position when news broke of a Lesser Yellowlegs at Inner Marsh Farm (left), and we were therefore able to get there in good time to have great views of the bird in front of the hide for about 30 minutes, before it flew high away to the east and was not seen again. The butterfly (right) is Small Copper.

Also at IMF today, some spectacular views of a Hobby chasing dragonflies, and at Burton Marsh a reeling Grasshopper Warbler was seen well.

Lowther, Cumbria

We had a wonderful day at Lowther in Cumbria, a short but difficult bike ride, followed by a pleasant moorland walk and a nice meal in Pooley Bridge at the end of Ullswater.

Highlight of the day for me was the discovery of Grey Wagtail nest in the side of a bridge over the River Lowther. We watched as the adults repeatedly returned to feed the three hungry chicks. Later when we returned to the same spot, the chicks had left the nest and were on rocks in the river. Also on the river, two Dippers.


Grey Wagtail chicks.


Meadow Cranesbill at Pooley Bridge. One of my favourite flowers.


A slightly worst for wear Ringlet. Ok I admit it, it's dead, but it's the first I've ever seen so far north, so worth its place here.


Giant Bellflower, a first for me.

Slow Worms and some other stuff

I don't like giving out sites for reptiles, so lets just say that this is somewhere in South West Lancs.


A medium sized Slow Worm. We found four of these legless lizards.


Speckled Wood butterfly.


Common Tern. We visited Seaforth, Liverpool, armed with our brand new permits. The recent White-tailed Plover finally convinced us that we needed to apply! There was a decent selection of birds, including about 200 Common Terns, Sandwich Tern, adult Mediterranean Gull and summer plumage Bar-tailed Godwits and Knots.

Jersey

Just got back from a short break to Jersey. It was meant to be a weekend to north west Scotland, but the forecast of 70 mph winds and torrential rain was not appealing, so we decided to head for the sun. It was mainly a cycling holiday, and we covered around 80 miles in three days. Jersey is not renowned for its birds, but we did ok. Best birds we saw were Dartford Warblers, Marsh Harriers and adult Mediterranean Gull.


Jersey Thrift (left). Larger than the thrift we see in Britain, and flowering later, this is one of the specialities of the island. Oystercatcher (right) nesting at Elizabeth Castle, St Helier.

Mont Orgueil, Gorey.

Jersey has the only population of wild Green Lizards (left) in the United Kingdom. Notice how this animal has its back legs raised leaving its belly on the ground so that it can extract the maximum heat from the day. Les Quennevais Dunes (right) is one of the best sites for seeing them.

We visited Jersey Zoo, now known simply as Durrell, after it's founder Gerald Durrell (left), the author of amongst others "My Family and Other Animals". There were lots of fascinating creatures at the zoo, but one of my favourites was the White-backed Duck, a species I have never seen before even in captivity. It was very Little Grebe like.

Elizabeth Castle (left). This castle is on an island just off St Helier. The earliest parts of the building up above in the background date from around 1600. The square in the foreground is Georgian and if you look at the top of the old castle, you can just make out a concerete structure. This is the the command centre of the Nazi fortifications in the castle. Incredible to think that such an old castle was still being fortified for battle as recently as 70 years ago. The whole island is littered with nazi bunkers and other fortifications, and Jersey was the only part of the United Kingdom to be occupied by the Nazis in the second World War. The photo on the right is Corbiere point, which is where the Jersey Thrift was photographed.

Warton Crag and Arnside Knott

It was a real scorcher today and Warton Crag and Arnside Knott where alive with butterflies. It's impossible to positively identify every fritillary you see, but for every one Dark Green Fritillary we identified at least 20 High Brown. In total we must have seen easily 100 High Browns. Also about 20 Small Pearl Bordered Fritillaries, and countless Northern Brown Argus, Graylings, Meadow Browns, Small Heaths, Common Blues, Speckled Wood, Small Tortoiseshell, Large Skippers and a few whites. The freezing cold winter certainly doesn't seem to have effected these butterflies.


High Brown Fritillary (left) and Dark Green Fritillary (right). The upperwing pattern is very similar and it is almost impossible to tell the two species apart from the upperwing.

High Brown Fritillary (left) and Dark Green Fritillary (right). The underwing pattern is quite different and is diagnostic. To seperate these two species you really need to see the underwing. Note especially the brown spots with white centres towards the rear of the wing which is diagnostic of High Brown, and the extensive area of green on the lower wing of Dark Green.

High Brown Fritillary is a rare and localised butterfly in the UK, whereas Dark Green is much commoner and can occur as far north as northern Scotland, where I have seen them at Loch Sionascaig, Inverpolly.
I find photographing fritillaries quite difficult, but if you can find an area where they are feeding, you can get very close, and in fact they seem almost drunk with nectar and oblivious to your presence.

Small Pearl bordered Fritillary. This is a much smaller butterfly than High Brown or Dark Green and it's main confusion species is the very similar Pearl bordered Fritillary which flies earlier in the year, and has a different underwing pattern.

Northern Brown Argus. This is the northern counterpart of the Brown Argus which does not occur in northern Britain and has a different flight period. The underwing pattern is diagnostic.

High Brown and Dark Green Fritillaries

A couple more photos of High Brown (left) and Dark Green Fritillaries (right), showing the diagnostic underwings.

Great Orme, Llandudno

It was a beautiful day on the Great Orme today, with lots of wildlife interests. Birds included 2 Choughs, Peregrine, Guillemots, Razorbills and Stonechats. Flowers included the nationally rare Spiked Speedwell, as well as Common Rock-rose, Hoary Rock-rose and Bloody Cransebill. Butterflies were well represented, with Silver-studded Blues, Dark Green Fritillarys and Graylings and Moths Cistus Forester and Ruby Tiger.


Spiked Speedwell


Cistus Forester (left) and Silver-studded Blues


Common Rock-rose

Club-tailed Dragonfly and a frustrating Bee-eater

Our first stop today was the River Dee at Holt, to search for Club-tailed Dragonfly. This is a well known site for the species, but I was a little worried that they may already have emerged and dispersed. However, we were lucky, and saw at least 5 individuals flying over the river, and even found one resting on a leaf just begging to be photographed! Apart from a single Azure Damselfly, the only other dragonfly of note was our old friend the Banded Demoiselle which was present in reasonable numbers.

Club-tailed Dragonfly (left) and Banded Demoiselle (right)

Then we left Holt and headed for Anglesey, because we had just received news of a Bee-eater near Cemlyn Bay, which apparently was showing well. The weather was dreadful on the way, really heavy rain, but in an odd kind of way this raised our spirits, because it surely meant that the bird would not move on. Unfortunately as we neared cemlyn, the rain stopped, the cloud broke and the sun came out, and guess what, the bird was gone. We had missed it by 30 minutes!

We hung around for a bit, and then suddenly we heard it! It was flying overhead! But we couldn't see it. Twenty birders searching the sky, but even though it called several times, none of us could see it. In the end we gave up and went to view the tern colony, and managed to pick out Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns.

Navelwort at Hen Felin, Cemlyn Bay.

Guillemots and Razorbills at South Stack.

Not wanting to waste our day on Anglesey, we headed to South Stack and saw the usual Guillemots, Razorbills, Puffins and Choughs, as well as Black Guillemot in Holyhead harbour. So in the the end not a bad day.

Marshside, Southport

About 10 Avocets from the Sandgrounders hide today, and at least two small chicks. Also about 200 Black-tailed Godwits.

More Demoiselles and a Water Ladybird

I called in at Havannah Flashes again on my way home from work today. There were masses of Banded Demoiselles on the wing, I counted at least 50 from the wooden bridge over the brook. They were flitting around all over the places, way into the distance, but a lot of the activity was centred around a poor female which was trying to lay eggs in the water, but which was being almost assaulted by at least 5 males who were each trying to mate with her. In the end I'm almost certain that the female drowned, because she looked like she was just floating in the water, still with a determined male attached!

Nearby on the flashes themselves, just where the small bridge crosses the flash, I found two Water Ladybirds. This is a species which lives in reedbeds and is therefore quite scarce in St Helens. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me today, but click here for some more information on Water Ladybird.

Sankey Valley

I biked it along the Sankey Valley this morning, on my way to work, from Carr Mill Dam to Mucky mountains at Earlestown. I didn't stop anywhere, and I completed the whole route in 25 minutes, so not exactly serious birding, but even so quite a decent selection of birds, as follows:

Kingfisher 1
Mute Swan 2 (inc. bird with 6 cygnets)
Reed Warbler 5+
Sedge Warbler 1+
Whitethroat 10+
Blackcap 5+
Willow Warbler 6
Chiffchaff 5
Jay 1
Yellowhammer 2