Cotswolds - 24th-28th October

After a few days in Cornwall and the excitement of the Grey Catbird, Sarah, Tobias and I headed to our cottage in the Cotswolds for a few days to relax and catch-up with work. I didn't plan to go birding as such and with a dramatic fall in nighttime temperatures there was not a lot of moth'ing to be done.

With the cold and clear nights I experimented with some star trail photography following the tips provided on this website. I was fairly pleased with my first effort but it was difficult to frame the image I wanted exactly, I would have preferred the North Star to have been in the frame and further to the left.

I ran the moth trap for two nights and caught little, the highlights being a Feathered Thorn, December Moth and Green-brindled Crescent but temperatures were around 6c so I didn't expect much.

I spent a couple of hours at Slimbridge on 26th, there was not a massive amount to be seen. There were good numbers of Shoveler, Pintail and Teal, mainly in eclipse plumage and looking far from spectacular. From the Zeiss hide there were two Peregrine, Marsh Harrier, c.150 Golden Plover, 200 Lapwing and five Common Crane. I saw little else of note and the place was heaving with people enjoying their half-term breaks. I headed home and met Sarah for lunch in Cheltenham.

Star-trail from Cowley, taken using Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark ii on Live Composite mode at 45mm F8, 800 ISO with a three hour exposure and images taken every 25 seconds.

Feathered Thorn - Cowley, Cheltenham

December Moth - Cowley, Cheltenham

Shoveler - Slimbridge WWT

Lapwing and Golden Plover - Slimbridge WWT

Moulting Pintail - Slimbridge WWT

Cowley, Cotswolds - 30th October to 1st November

We had a weekend at our cottage in Cowley near to Cheltenham in the Cotswolds planned so I aimed to get out birding on one morning and begin to explore the local sites. I now have a moth trap stationed there so on our arrival on Friday evening I was quick to flick the switch and get it running. There are no street lights in the village and we are set in the middle of open countryside dotted with chalk grassland and beech woodland and while I don't expect a huge list I am hoping for a good range of common species. The night was foggy and cold (8c) and the trap was a little disappointing with only six species.

December Moth

Angle-shades

Feathered Thorn

Yellow-line Quaker

On Saturday morning I was up early to head out and explore a couple of local birding spots. First up was Painswick Beacon a location only a few minutes drive away and with regular reports of impressive viz-mig counts. The weather was far from ideal with a dispersing fog and a southerly wind. Still, I walked a circuit around the golf-course and then spent 30 minutes at the beacon to see if there was any passage. In the surrounding sycamore woodland and on the golf course were around 30 Goldcrest and 20 Meadow Pipit and overhead were my first Brambling of the year and four Crossbill which flew low to the west, four Redpoll and 15 Siskin. At the Beacon a small passage of birds moving south included 30 Goldfinch, 15 Sky Lark, 30 Redwing, 15 Fieldfare and 35 Chaffinch.

Map of Painswick Beacon. I parked on the yellow road bisecting the golf-course and walked north-east to Pope's Wood and then back south-west to the Beacon (at 283m).

View to north-west from just below Painswick Beacon

I headed back to the cottage to collect Sarah and Tobias, dropped them at a friends for a social and I headed to Coombe Hill Meadows, a small reserve owned and managed by Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. I parked at the end of the track known as 'The Wharf' at GL19 4BA beside 'The Swan' pub and walked west along the north side of the canal before crossing to the Grundon Hide which overlooks an area of flooded meadows. It has to be said that the site was pretty birdless on my visit!! I saw 12 Redwing, 10 Fieldfare, a couple of Goldcrest and heard a small group of Golden Plover overhead. The only bird visible from the hide on the flooded meadows was a single Mute Swan although there were still around 15 Common Darter on the wing.

Map of Coombe Hill Meadows - Park at the end of the yellow lane (The Wharf) besides the Swan Pub (GL19 4BA) in Coombe Hill and walk west on the footpath either to the south of north of the canal (there is a bridge across the canal just before the reserve. The Grundon Hide overlooks the meadows and is accessible from the south and a second hide overlooks the Long Pool and is accessible from the north

Coombe Hill Meadows information board

View over Coombe Hill Meadows from the Grundon Hide

Winter Mothing

I took a punt and ran the moth trap in my Romsey garden on the night of Saturday 22nd December, with temperatures remaining at around 8c I was hoping to catch a late flying moth or two. I only caught two moths of two species but both cracking - a December Moth and a Feathered Thorn. The December Moth is a widespread species of eggar frequently recorded at light traps between October and January. The Feathered Thorn is a similarly widespread species flying from mid-September to early December.

 

December Moth (top) and Feathered Thorn, Romsey