Catchup Time - May, 2022

I recently realised that, with so many things happening in my life, it was a long while since I published a blog post featuring local and garden highlights. Apart from a report on a dragon hunt in July, my last offering on this subject featured events in April. This, then, will be my first step in bringing matters up-to-date, and feature some of my highlights from May. Being away for nearly half of the month, it might seem to be a bit thin!

Tuesday, 3rd May             Calke Park and Staunton Harold Reservoir

A short visit to the two hides at Calke Park produced a few photo opportunities. The most exciting of these was the male Brambling. At this time, I was still being very cautious about Covid, as our trip to the Outer Hebrides was on the horizon, and so my time in the hides was curtailed by the arrival of other persons.

Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) - Calke Park

Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) (male) - Calke Park

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) (male) - Calke Park

Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) - Calke Park

Jackdaw (Coloeus monedula) - Calke Park

From Calke Park, my route home took me over the bridge at Staunton Harold Reservoir. I stopped just before the bridge to have a look around. A Grey Heron was skulking in the shadows and a Mute Swan was sitting on the most enormous swan's nest that I have ever seen!

 

Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) - Staunton Harold Reservoir

Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) - Staunton Harold Reservoir

Sunday, 8th May                  Our Garden

 

A highlight on this day was the arrival of a Brimstone butterfly in the garden. We don't see many of these although, by coincidence, I did see one in the garden just yesterday!

 

Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) (female) - our garden

Wednesday, 11th May                 Packington

 

On this day, I went to check on my newest Little Owl site, and was extremely pleasantly surprised to find it much closer to a possible viewing point than on my previous sightings.

 

Little Owl (Athene noctua) - my LO Site No.54

Sadly, a visit in July revealed that the tree that I'd previously always seen the owl in, and believed to be its nesting tree, had been greatly reduced with a chain-saw. The intervening hedge had grown much higher too, so that it was impossible to check out the situation with any degree of certainty, but I suspect that the owl will have gone.

 

Saturday, 14th May                     Ketton Quarry

 

On this day, I travelled a bit further afield to Ketton Quarry, which is one of my favourite locations for butterflies. It also tends to throw up a few day-flying moths.

My main targets were Green Hairstreak, plus Dingy and Grizzled Skippers. My timing seems to have been out, however, for all these species, although they would normally be in the peak of their season at this time. I only found one very worn Dingy Skipper and one rather uncooperative Grizzled Skipper to photograph. Not a single Green Hairstreak was seen in what has always been a 'dead cert' area in previous years.

Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages) (male?) - Ketton Quarry

Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus malvae) - Ketton Quarry

A pair of Brimstone were busy on the ground.

 

Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) (male + female) - Ketton Quarry

As far as I can make out, this was the caterpillar of Dark Green Fritillary.

 

Dark Green Fritillary (Argynnis aglaja) (larva) - Ketton Quarry

Common Blue butterflies were about, and always a delight to see.

 

Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) (male) - Ketton Quarry

The female Common Blue can easily be confused with the less common Brown Argus. This is a Brown Argus, but I am not sure of its gender.

Brown Argus (Aricia agestis) - Ketton Quarry

Small Heath butterflies were present too.

 

Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus) - Ketton Quarry

Two species of day-flying moth are a speciality of Ketton Quarry. Burnet Companion is classed as 'uncommon/under-recorded', and Common Heath (a very variable moth) is classed as 'rare' with only three known colonies in the county.

 

Common Heath (Ematurga atomaria) (female) - Ketton Quarry

Common Heath (Ematurga atomaria) (male) - Ketton Quarry

Burnet Companion looks orange in flight, due to its bright orange underside - a feature that one would probably never expect from the normal view of a settled one.

Burnet Companion (Euclidia glyphica) - Ketton Quarry

The common micro-moth, Pyrausta aurata, often referred to as 'mint moth' was there.

 

mint moth - Pyrausta aurata - Ketton Quarry

A caterpillar of the Lackey moth added a splash of gaudy colour to the scene!

 

Lackey (Malacosoma neustria) (larva) - Ketton Quarry

I don't think that I have ever photographed a Woodlouse before. What fascinating creatures they are!

 

Pill Woodlouse (Armadillidium vulgare) - Ketton Quarry

I have absolutely no idea as to the identity of this tiny beetle, but it looked exquisite! UPDATE:_ With thanks to 'Conehead 54' who ID'd the beetle as one of the Cryptocephalus species (and it being on Rough Hawkbit), I now think that the beetle is probably Cryptocephalus aureolus, as most of the few records that there are for the county are from Ketton Quarry!

 

probable Cryptocephalus aureolus - Ketton Quarry

It hadn't been the visit that I'd hoped for but it was, nonetheless extremely enjoyable.

 

Tuesday, 31st May                       Our Garden

 

We came back from the Outer Hebrides to find that we had a visitor in the garden in the form of a rather fine-looking racing pigeon. This pigeon was somewhat omnipresent and this gave me the opportunity to take photos of its leg adornments and trace its owner via the data on them. It's home was in Biggleswade, some 70 miles (110 km) away, and it had been released in The Channel Islands, approximately 240 miles (390 km) away. There had been a group of pigeon fanciers from Biggleswade competing with a group from Leicester and it seems that his bird had decided to travel with the birds from Leicester.

 

The owner requested that I did not feed his bird (a 2 year old female) in order that it would be tempted to return home, but there was no way I could withhold food from it without disenfranchising the other birds that visit our garden. Several days later it was still with us and, having seen it that morning, I was about to contact the owner around mid-day to update him when he phoned me to tell me that she'd just arrived home. He also asked if she'd been missing her tail when with us. Not being familiar with racing pigeons, I'd put the lack of obvious tail protrusion as a feature of the breed!

Racing Pigeon - 2 years old - our garden

We also came home to find that a Fox had been visiting regularly in our absence, as had been captured on the cameras that I had left out. This had been taking advantage of the peanuts and sunflower hearts that I'd left on a large suspended tray, and which was within the reach of the Fox.

 

 

 

This brings me to the end of my catchup on May, 2022. I suspect that my next post will feature June events, either from the garden or from my excursions, but not both, in order to keep the size of the post to a more acceptable level.

 

In the meantime, please take good care of yourselves and Nature - thank you for dropping by - - - Richard