A change....

....is as good as a rest!

Kingfisher. David Cookson.

There's nowt like kicking off a post on a blog with a stunning photograph, and photographs don't come any more stunning than this one and that's official. Thanks for this David....bloody brilliant.

With JB/BT today and by way of a change we set off North for Hale Moss a small reserve off the A6 towards Beetham, to say the least it was a little quiet but it was good to find another Marsh Tit - my second this week - a very localised resident breeder, and a bird you're only ever likely to see in the limestone woodlands of  SE Cumbria, the Arnside and Silverdale AONB, and the Lune Valley, also a Buzzard over.

Black Darter. Pete Woodruff.

On to Foulshaw Moss where we saw the distant Osprey which is almost certain to breed here one day soon, 3 Stonechat here were excellent in my book at least, the only other bird noted here - believe it or not - was a Willow Warbler, we saw 3 Red Deer one of which was snow white and another first for me. The only butterflies seen were a single Red Admiral and Small Tortoiseshell, there was a good number - recorders  don't like that sort of language - of Black Darter and I achieved a - not very glamorous - pic of the one above which settled on the top of a gate. A visit to Witherslack was to be honest a little too late in the year but a single female Silver-washed Fritillary did eventually put in an appearance.

Brimstone. Pete Woodruff.

Thirty minutes at the Latterbarrow Reserve gave us three butterfly species with a Small Tortoiseshell, Common Blue, and 3 Brimstone one of which is in the pic above and which - for the first time ever - I appreciated the perfection of this creatures camouflage as it fed on the Scabious 'Pink Mist'.

Stonechat Behaviour. 

I observed some 'new' Stonechat behaviour today at Foulshaw Moss. BT picked up a very distant bird perched in a small tree on the moss which I instantly recognised as a Stonechat, the bird eventually flew off and joined two others and the three then fed on a swarm of small insects at the very top of a tall Scotch Pine. I would never have searched a tall Scotch Pine in order to locate the Stonechat....another first record for the book.