A Long Hot Summer

The summer has been long and hot and I have done little but for work most evenings and many weekends with little time for birding. This is a summary of the highlights of my summer before, with luck, Autumn kicks in and tI can get out and see some birds.

I have been carrying out vegetation and butterfly surveys at Bedwyn Brail in Wiltshire, this woodland block is always a pleasure to work in and I recorded three new species for the site, most exciting was an egg laying female Purple Emperor but these Chimney Sweeper and Forester moths were nice additions.

Chimney Sweeper - Bedwyn Brail, Wiltshire

Forester - Bedwyn Brail, Wiltshire

I have been carrying out extensive invertebrate surveys on Portsmouth Water sites in Hampshire and West Sussex with Adam Wright. These have produced a few interesting species including a new colony of Small Red-eyed Damselfly and a whopping count of 31 Asilus crabroniformis at a site on Portsdown Hill. The latter is one of my favourite invertebrates and to find such a strong colony was very satisfying.

Bee Orchid - Near Wickham, Hampshire

Small Red-eyed Damselfly - Fishbourne, West Sussex

The Tachinid Fly Prosena siberita - Near Wickham, Hampshire (O)

The Longhorn Beetle Paracorymbia fulva - Near Wickham, Hampshire (O)

The Longhorn Beetle Agapanthia villosoviridescens - Near Wickham, Hampshire (O)

The Picture-winged Fly Chaetorellia jaceae - Near Wickham, Hampshire (O)

Wasp Spider Argiope bruennichi - Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth (O)

Asilus crabroniformis - Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth (O)

Asilus crabroniformis - Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth (O)

My only visit to Crockford Bridge this summer was on 26th June where the usual range of New Forest Odonata put on a good show.

Small Red Damselfly - Crockford Bridge

Southern Damselfly - Crockford Bridge

Beautiful Demoiselle - Crockford Bridge

Beautiful Demoiselle - Crockford Bridge

On 28th June I popped to Bentley Wood to try and see Purple Emperor. I met with some success but the only 'grounded' Emperor was in the shade and not showing much purple.

Purple Hairstreak - Bentley Wood

Broad-bodied Chaser - Bentley Wood

Red-necked Footman - Bentley Wood

Purple Emperor - Bentley Wood

On 4th July, having heard of large numbers of Purple Emperor present, I visited the Knepp Estate in West Sussex. After seeing around 12 Purple Emperor I eventually encountered one on the ground which showed fairly well. On the day before my visit there was an impressive count of 388 Purple Emperor at this site!

Purple Emperor - Knepp Estate

Purple Emperor - Knepp Estate

We visited the Isles of Scilly on a family holiday for a week from the 7th July. I didn't do any birding as such but did run my Heath moth-trap at the Star Castle and went on a pelagic on 10th July. The latter didn't produce many birds as the conditions were too calm but we did see around 12 Blue Shark, Ocean Sunfish, 12 Bottle-nosed Dolphin and 25 Common Dolphin. Moth highlights were two new British species for me, Shore Wainscot and Devonshire Wainscot,

Shore Wainscot  - St. Mary's, Isle of Scilly

Devonshire Wainscot  - St. Mary's, Isle of Scilly

 Marbled Coronet - St. Mary's, Isle of Scilly

Four-spotted Footman (female) - St. Mary's, Isle of Scilly

Four-spotted Footman (male) - St. Mary's, Isle of Scilly

Ocean Sunfish - At Sea, Isle of Scilly

Blue Shark - At Sea, Isle of Scilly

Great Skua - At Sea, Isle of Scilly

Rose Chafer Cetonia aurata - Peninnis Head, St. Mary's, Isle of Scilly

Trips to Pennington  20th and 24th July produced relatively little but these three Curlew Sandpiper and a Little Stint on 20th July were very welcome.

Curlew Sandpiper - Pennington Marsh 20th July (O)

Black-headed Gull - Pennington Marsh 20th July (O)

Little Egret - Pennington Marsh 20th July (O)

Reed Warbler - Pennington Marsh 20th July (O)

On 24th July I was working near Noar Hill NNR and so I couldn't resist popping by for a couple of hours.

The Hoverfly Sericomyia silentis - Noar Hill NNR 24th July (O)

Brimstone - Noar Hill NNR 24th July (O)

Brimstone - Noar Hill NNR 24th July (O)

Brown hairstreak - Noar Hill NNR 24th July (O)

Weekends in the cottage in the Cotswolds allowed me to spend some time at Slimbridge 31st July and 11th August where a few migrant waders had begun to trickle through and Avocet showed well.

Avocet attacking Shelduck chick - Slimbridge 31st July (O)

Green Sandpiper - Slimbridge 11th August (O)

Green Sandpiper - Slimbridge 11th August (O)

Ruff - Slimbridge 11th August (O)

Ruff - Slimbridge 31st July (O)

This summer I sold my beloved Canon 7d Mark II and 500mm Mark II and purchased a new camera system, the Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II with the 60mm macro, 70-150mm and 300mm lens. I have found adjusting to the system a steep learning curve having been using Canon kit for the last 20 years or so but I am getting to the point where I am pleased with the images I am obtaining, particularly the macro shots. Images taken with the new Olympus are marked (O) after the caption. For the time being at least most images on this blog will be shot with the Olympus kit. The full list of my Olympus kit can be seen on my About page here.

16th-18th May - Martin Down and Pennington Marsh

The last couple of weeks have been manic at work with some very early starts for breeding bird surveys, late nights reviewing documents and getting the company ready for the new and extremely tedious General Data Protection Regulations which come into force later in May. However, I have managed to get out a little to protect my sanity.

Note - I added a number of sound recordings to this post linked to uploads at the Internet Bird Collection (IBC). With the subsequent transfer of data from IBC to the Macaulay Library the links to these became broken. I have therefore subsequently uploaded these sound files to eBird and the recordings can be viewed here for Martin Down and here for Pennington Marsh. I have retained the sonograms from these recordings on this post.

On the morning of 16th May I visited Marin Down on the north Hampshire and Wiltshire border to complete my Nightingale survey as organised by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, alas, there were no Nightingale. Martin Down has experienced a catastrophic fall in population from 24 singing males in 1980 to none now, there cannot have been a change in the extent of scrub, this is a National Nature Reserve and there has probably been an increase rather than a reduction in scrub cover. So surely this local and the national decline is linked to changes in the wintering grounds or something happening along the migration routes rather than localised habitat loss/change in the UK. Still, there were lots of Corn Bunting (at least 15 birds recorded) and the first Turtle Dove that I have seen in the UK for many years with at least six 'purring' birds. Here, also were an amazing density of Skylark and it was difficult to estimate the number of birds but my best guess was 30 birds in all. It was a little windy for butterflies and the only species I recorded was a single Green Hairstreak, my first of the year.

Corn Bunting - Martin Down, Hampshire

Corn Bunting - Martin Down, Hampshire

Turtle-dove - Martin Down, Hampshire

Green Hairstreak - Martin Down, Hampshire

Invertebrate surveys with Adam Wright on 17th May near to Fishbourne, Chichester area produced a few first spring records for me although we recorded nothing of great excitement. White-legged Damselfly, Beautiful Demoiselle, Banded Demoiselle and Hairy Hawker were nice species to see as always.

The hoverfly Platycheirus rosarum - Fishbourne, Chichester

The hoverfly Helophilus pendulus - Fishbourne, Chichester

The hoverfly Cheilosia albitarsus - Fishbourne, Chichester

The snipefly Rhagio scolopacea - Fishbourne, Chichester

On 18th May I had a short wander around Pennington Marsh, it was fairly quiet with the highlights being two male Ruff almost in summer plumage, 25 Dunlin, two Peregrine over the site, three Whimbrel, 15 Great-crested Grebe (this seemed to be a large number for a May visit) and two very late Wigeon. Numbers of migrant birds seem to be very low and I only recorded three Whitethroat and four Reed Warbler of the breeding species. Singles of Cuckoo and a Lesser Whitethroat seemed to be birds holding territory on site.

Reed Warbler - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire

Single song sequence of Reed Bunting - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire


Lesser Whitethroat - Pennington marsh, Hampshire


Sequence of Lesser Whitethroat song with a rattle to begin with followed by warbling notes - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire

Sequence of Lesser Whitethroat song starting with the rattle then a sequence of warbling notes and ending in a rattle - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire

There were high numbers of Great-crested Grebe for a May visit - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire