Thursday, June 28, 2012

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Wednesday's moths

Team Hawkmoth
Meet the hawkmoths! Left to right: Pine, Elephant, Eyed and Poplar
True Lover's Knot
True Lover's Knot
Green Silver-lines
Green Silver-lines
Green Silver-lines
Nice to catch a green moth
Peppered Moth
Peppered Moth
The Shears
Shears

Full moth list follows, if you enjoy that kind of thing...

Monster from the deep

Southern Hawker exuvia

Spotted a Southern Hawker emerging from one of the ponds, and - very conveniently - its exuvia nearby. So now I've got a definite comparison with what I'm now confident are Emperor exuvia I collected a couple of summers ago.

Though the hawker looked well on the way to its maiden flight at lunchtime, it was still sitting there when I walked past after work...

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Suburban birds

I spent the Jubilee weekend and bank holidays at my parents' house while they were away enjoying themselves in France. Eventually it stopped raining and I did a bit of ringing...
Collared Dove
Collared Dove
It's pretty difficult to catch Collared Doves in mist nets; being a bigger and faster-flying bird, they tend to bounce out easily or can wriggle their way to freedom. So I was lucky to get my hands on this male.

Male House Sparrow
Male House Sparrow
Juvenile Starling
Juvenile Starling
Starling
Adult male Starling
Goldfinch
Goldfinch
Dunnock
Juvenile Dunnock
Blue Tit
Moulting adult Blue Tit