Singing in the Rain!

Well I certainly wasn't singing in the rain and I did throw in the towel at 1.30pm just a couple of hours after I'd started my day. But first....

A nice photograph of a young male Great-spotted Woodpecker on the lookout for the next meal from its parent, taken at Mere Sands Wood by Gary Jones who's website is HERE ....Thanks for this Gary.

I managed 1.5 hours on Harrisend in a 'hurried' visit on account of the weather which threatened rain from getting out of the car and carried out the threat 15 minutes before I got back to it, so I could never have been regarded as the happiest birder in the UK as I've yet to be happy in the rain and certainly wasn't doing a Gene Kelly routine.

The good news from here was 7 Stonechat, seen as a male and female, and an almost certain - difficult to count - full brood of five juveniles, very mobile and not playing the game by keep disappearing into gorse bush's 2-3 hundred metres away from me plus intermingling with 6 Linnets, a pretty hard observation to get to grips with but my record stands. Also to note, at least 32 Meadow Pipit counted, 2 male Reed Bunting , a Willow Warbler gave good views close by a nest I'd guess, and a Buzzard overhead.

I drove from here to the Hawthornthwaite access track off the Scorton Road having cast my pessimistic hat out of the car window thinking the weather would dry up, but it didn't work and not having got out of the car was home again by 2.30pm.

And now....

A nice image of the Mother Shipton moth, and....

The Yellow Shell moth, both with thanks to Warren Baker who regularly contributes to Birds2blog by making excellent constructive comments. Thanks for your pic's and for looking in on a daily basis, I really appreciate it Warren.

Mega News from RBA.

A Little Shearwater was singing overnight on Lundy, Devon. The bird is of the race baroli which breeds in small colonies on the Azores, Madeira, and Canaries and is rarely seen north of the breeding areas, it is a small version of the Manx Shearwater and is similarly very dark above and white below, it can be heard usually on dark moonless nights with a high pitched laughing voice. The species' true status is very confused by identification problems. It's interesting to note that seven of the nine specimen or trapped records of this race of Little Shearwater were all in the period March-June. The first accepted record of this species was in 1853 off Bull Rock, Co Cork, Ireland, the bird had flown on board a sloop.

Now I had to look up the definition of the word 'sloop' and found it is basically....a single masted, fore-and-aft-rigged boat....well, you learn something every day and I didn't know that, did you! 

And finally....Have you had a look at Pics2blog  ever/recently?