Category: Uncategorized
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Painted Lady
Painted Lady Vanessa cardui
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Nesting woodpigeon
A woodpigeon spent several hours collecting nest materials from the eucalyptus tree this morning, snapping off single twigs and carrying them away one by one.
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Swifts
Group of about 15 swifts spotted mid-morning.
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Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper butterfly, Pyronia tithonus, in the garden at lunchtime. It settled on some spurge plants for a few moments but flew off again before I could take a photo. Lots of white butterflies about, and a fairly large moth which I didn’t get a chance to identify.
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Thirsty gulls and more crickets
Heavy rain this morning at about 8.45 am. Two juvenile gulls on a nearby roof were throwing their heads back and apparently drinking it – something I’ve never seen before. At the same time a woodpigeon on another roof seemed to be having a bath – cocking up first one wing then the other and…
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Cricket
A buzzard was calling at about 11.30 am this morning. Went to the postbox this afternoon and saw some ripe blackberries on a patch of waste ground outside someone’s garden fence. A good crop of rowanberries on all the trees and the lime flowers have set seed. A Green Bush Cricket seems to be living…
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Four buzzards
Flying west at about 11.30 am.
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Peregrine and dragonfly
A peregrine was flying about and calling near the house all morning – could be a young one turned out by the parents to fend for itself? Emperor dragonfly on garden pond, and a different type of damselfly to the usual ones – black body/blue tail.
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Heron and gulls
Strange, prehistoric-sounding noises overhead at about 11.30 am – turned out to be three gulls attacking a very vocal heron. Had a terrific view of the heron diving and striking back at them.
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Swifts
About a dozen Swifts screaming through the gardens during the late morning, just above head height. Saw an article on the BBC website about five minutes later about the decline in Swift numbers. According to the RSPB the low-flying, screaming behaviour means that the birds are breeding close by and they are collecting reports to…