Rain stops play!

An after work visit in the early evening to the old Corton sewage works site revealed a young Spotted Flycatcher dashing all over the place in the windy conditions. Always nice to see, the Spotted Flycatcher is a declining summer visitor and now more often seen in the local area on migration. It used the same high hedge area that hosted so many Spotted Flycatchers, Pied Flycatchers & Redstarts during the spectacular fall of migrants in the area last September. 

The visit was abruptly curtailed by the sudden onslaught of a rain shower.

Pictured is one of those Spotted Flycatchers from exactly the same spot seen and photographed in September 2008.

North Denes

A Garden Warbler was seen on a bush along the North Denes slope, whilst on the North Denes itself a Painted Lady flew by. These were the only migrants seen during an early evening walk around the area, yesterday.

B(l)ank Holiday Monday

A walk around the North Denes and the net posts today revealed zero migrant activity (same as the last 2 days for me!) and just the resident birds 5 House Sparrow, Linnet, Magpie and 2 young Pied Wagtails. Not even a Wheatear was seen.

Arnold's Walk was little better save for 3 Song Thrushes in the brambles and up to 4 Migrant Hawker dragonflies. Very disappointing, sadly any migrants seen here are quickly and regularly flushed by the myriad dog walkers which are seen here all the time.

Meanwhile in the garden 2 young Goldfinch and 2 adults are feeding regularly from the Niger seed feeder. The young Goldfinch is pale buff coloured with with black and white feathering looking like overlapping ovals on the undertail coverts.

Very confiding Kestrel

On a walk down to Horsey Beach from the Nelson's Head pub, 2/3 of the way along the track, a juvenile Kestrel posed down incredibly to just 1 foot as it hunted for food in the nearby field.

It would look intently from the fence posts and then fly into the field before flying back to a post. It must have been a recently fledged juvenile from the nest as it didn't seem to catch anything during the period of observation and it didn't hover once either, preferring short flights and then dropping down to the ground. It drew an appreciative crowd, as camera were whipped out and photo's taken of it, in the manner of papparazi photographing celebrities at a film premiere.

Also seen on the walk down was a fine male Emperor Dragonfly. 

On the beach 2 Grey Seals poked the head up out of the water just a few yards from the water's edge.

Daubenton Dip

Last night I attended a very well organised Bat & Moth Night held at the Eels Foot Inn at Ormesby St. Michael and a boat trip out onto the Broad to look for Daubenton's Bats.

The boat trip was preceded by an excellent slide talk about the 16 species of bat seen in the UK delivered by a very knowledgable bat expert.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't playing ball and what should have been a lovely summer's evening felt more autumnal with a cold wind prevalent. This put paid to seeing very much, the only moths caught included 2 Herbaceous Hebrew Characters but the organisers had caught some moths earlier in true Blue Peter tradition and they showed us ones they'd caught earlier. These included Garden Tiger, Dark Arches and 3 others which I can't recall the names exactly but may have been called something like Dark Longshanks and a yellow moth called something like Yellow Canary Surprise and Brass beauty. Update, 1/9/09 The actual names of these moths were Dark Swordgrass, Canary shouldered Thorn and Burnished Brass, thanks to Peter C for supplying me with the correct names.

These moths have wonderfully evocative names because they were originally given their names by Victorian clergy.

An exciting boat trip armed with ultrasonic bat detectors which clicked when a bat was near revealed about 15 Pipistrelles in flight but I did not see any obvious Daubenton Bats, oh well I'll have to try again next year.

Southern Stunner!

Yesterday (Tuesday 25th in the afternoon) Jenny saw a wonderful male Southern Hawker Dragonfly, a stunning combination of blue and green markings on his abdomen, resting on one of our roses in the back garden. Here's a pic of a male I saw last September at the "New" Corton Sewage Works!

Birds, Beasts & ... Corfu

Paraphrasing the second book ("Birds, Beasts & Relatives") the follow up to his most famous book "My Family & Other Animals" in the wonderful trilogy of my hero, the late Gerald Durrell's account of his childhood experiences in the 1930's on the Greek island of Corfu... Jenny & I have just returned from a relaxing holiday on Corfu.

Gerald Durrell is a very heroic figure and much missed figure because he did so much to raise the plight of endangered species from around the world, he established Jersey Zoo (whose work included pioneering captive breeding programmes of endangered species to re-introduce back into the wild) and even rescue from extinction such species as the Pink Pigeon, the Mauritian Kestrel and others.

Our stay on this very green island coincided with a heatwave with average temperatures rising from 32C to a blistering 37C (and even touching 40c in the valleys!)

My quest was to seek out some of Gerald Durrell's old stomping grounds and share some of the wildlife spectacles he experienced seven decades earlier.

I was delighted to find Lake Scotini, a place Gerald visited as a boy and although there had been much development around it, including a quarry and a few houses nearby it was still there and I was delighted to see Balkan Green Lizards, a European Pond Turtle, Roesel's Bush Crickets, Scarlet & Ruddy Darters, Black-lined Skimmer, Cleopatra & Glider butterflies. Birds included a Lesser Grey Shrike and several Little Egrets, not bad for the heat of the summer.

I was also delighted to find Lake Gavrolimni nearby where several Marsh Frogs were seen near the waters edge. There must have been around 60 of their number around the muddy water's edge, as I approached they all hopped into the water and as I retreated they immediately hopped back out again, a very comical thing to see!

Nearby the chortling calls of 4 Bee-eaters heralded the wonderful sight of these rainbow coloured birds flying overhead. Nearby a restless Small Pearl- bordered Fritillary butterfly flew by.

A visit to Mount Pankrator enabled me to see such species such as Rock Bunting, Blue Rock Thrushes, Black- eared Wheatears but sadly no raptors were seen here. This was redeemed wonderfully later with a sighting of a magnificent adult Golden Eagle near Skipero.

Around our apartment confiding Erhard's Wall Lizards (especially those stranded briefly on the steps!) and at night up to 3 Turkish Geckos on the walls near the lights posed nicely for the camera whilst on a flowerbed by the local bakery, a Scarce Swallowtail also gave good views.

On a local beach at San Stephanos we were treated to a wonderful display of the white flowers of Sea Lilys or Sea daffodils.

On a visit to Corfu town, I witnessed the amazing spectacle of hundreds of Alpine Swifts swooping in groups feeding low over the roofs of the tall buildings here, an incredible sight! In a local park were commemorative statues to the Durrell brothers, Gerald & Lawrence.

Sadly, I never found the former childhood home of the Durrells now reputed sadly to be a ruin.

But on a visit to the White House at Kalami, the famous former home of Gerald's brother Lawrence, we saw 2 young Red- rumped Swallows which sat on wires whilst on a bush nearby several Long- tailed Blue butterflies and Lang's Short- tailed Blue butterfly were seen.

A visit to Peter's Biological garden revealed a colourful Hoopoe on the track ahead and a confiding bathing Icterine Warbler as well as 4 Clouded Yellow butterflies in a nearby field.