Moth Twitch

Photo by Keith Tailby copyright 2008
Our garden is becoming famous amongst 'Moth Twitchers'. I now regularly catch Pale Lemon Sallow Xanthia ocellaris. This is only a moderately rare moth, but it apparently it rarely turns up at the same spot twice. I get it each year! This year on 27th September, 2 intrepid 'moth-ers' from Leicestershire turned up with about 10 traps and camped out overnight. Initially, things did not look promising...

However, we finally caught 2 specimens. One of these is immortalised above, from Keith's Mothshots website http://www.mothshots.com/

We are TV stars!!!

Well, 'Born to be Wild' was finally on BBC4 on 10th July 2008. It was over a year ago that we filmed it. The production company did a good job and overall it was a pretty good programme.

I have found a review in the Independant which was favourable, including the phrase - 'The attention to detail, especially in Phil Wilkins's beautiful paintings of insects, and ...'

At the top of this post are some of the bee paintings I was working on when they were filming.

Young birds fledging

There has been a lot of activity on the bird front around our garden. Several nest-boxes were used. The young have been feeding away from their nests.
As well as the usual robins, tits and starlings, we have had a few slightly more out-of-the-ordinary fledglings.
For the first year, the swallows nested in our barn. A single bird showed interest last year. A pair returned this year. They laid eggs in the artificial nest, but only one hatched. We were worried about that one at first, but it did fine.
We also found a stock dove chick in our field. It let me approach very close for a photo before flying off. The green woodpecker was on our telegraph pole. It is an adult, I just liked the photo.

We are going to be on TV!!!

Last year the BBC filmed us for a series about amateur naturalists. The programme is finally appearing on BBC4 on the evening of 10th July.
The whole family will be starring (for about 5 minutes) on 'Born to be Wild'.

Fathers' Day

On Fathers' Day I get to choose what we do as a family. So this year on 15th June we headed to Weeting Heath in Norfolk http://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/nature%20reserves/map-links/weeting.htm and Lakenheath RSPB Reserve http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/l/lakenheathfen/index.asp in Suffolk.

The former was for Stone Curlews. We just saw the one, but there was plenty about including nice views of Woodlark and a family of Spotted Flycatcher just by one of the hides. I took a photo of the Drinker Moth caterpillar above. These are quite impressive beasts. They are named after their habit of drinking dew in the mornings from grass.

Lakenheath was a bit wetter, but still plenty about. We did not manage to see the Golden Orioles.

Several Dragonflies about, though, including this Hairy Hawker, Brachytron pratense.

Click for the Forest

This is an interesting site I discovered while surfing.
http://ettklickforskogen.se/index.php?option=com_aclickfortheforest&Itemid=54

The aim is to save ancient 'old growth' Swedish forest.

They have already saved a site located opposite the village of Årrenjaka, close to the Arctic Circle.
They are now attempting to save Verles old growth forest - a 82 hectare site.


The idea is simple - you click on the site and the sponsor pays a donation! You can also buy trees for about £5-£15.

The Bird Fair in August

I will be running a workshop at the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland in August. This will complement the Peregrine Productions stand at the fair.
The workshop is to help novices to start identifying insects. It will be on the Saturday (16th August 2008) and further details are on the Bird Fair website http://www.birdfair.org.uk/