Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

My best sighting of the last week of August was a fine adult Black-tailed Godwit feeding on Pulias Pond on my birthday! Despite it looking ideal for waders, this little saltwater pond does very poorly and apart from the regularly-wintering Redshank, most times you look there isn’t any waders at all. It must be the constant traffic of people and their dogs wandering past along the top of the bank. Apparently it used to be brilliant and would always have waders on it but those days are long gone. The godwit was a new species for the patch list even though I have seen plenty either side of the patch, this was the first I’ve seen within the boundaries. Wheatears and Willow Warblers were seen indicating passerine migration was well under way.

The next morning I tried my first seawatch of the autumn and, although there was nothing surprising, it was nice to notch up the first Bonxies and Arctic Skuas of the year. A quiet month for birding ended with the first returning Water Rail at Pulias on 28th. I trapped a new species of moth in the garden on 26th - Pandemis cerasana or Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix, not the most exciting of specimens.

I then flew off for a quick trip to Yorkshire to visit the family. My parents have now vacated Leeds after living there for 70 years and have moved closer to the coast in East Yorkshire (very good of them to consider my birding when I come visiting). It wasn’t really a birding trip - especially as there was very little birds about - but I managed a quick visit to both Filey and Flamborough. There were no rare birds along the coast during my few days there, and I just saw the odd migrant like Whinchat and Yellow Wagtails. We paid a visit to Bempton, somewhere I haven’t been for a couple of decades and was impressed. I’ve never seen so many Tree Sparrows. Below are a few photos of some common birds.

UK HOLIDAY - part 5 : JOURNEY HOME

Dropping off the family on Saturday lunchtime at Stansted, I hoped to see a few things on the way back home. Any proper plans were scuppered though by a an hour or two’s delay on the M11 then M25 motorway. As I was passing, I decided that calling at Thursley again would be an easy thing to do. By the time I arrived it was almost evening and, although it was mostly cloudy, the conditions were much better than our previous visit!

The first thing I did was to look at the Moat pond and immediately saw a huge lizard on a log on the waters edge. I initially got excited as I thought it might be a Sand Lizard but I guessed it probably was just a large Common Lizard given the habitat and lack of obvious green colour. It was a big fella though, much bigger than any Common Lizard I’d seen before in the UK. Saw more Red-eyed Damselflies and Small Red Damselflies around the lake - much easier to see this time.

Red-eyed and Common Blue Damselflies - Thursley, 18 Aug 18

I then headed out onto the boardwalk across the marshy areas hoping to see Black Darter better than last time. And I quickly did, with a fabulous male just sat on the boardwalk in front of me. I think that the wood on the boardwalk was emitting lots of heat in these dull conditions since I saw plenty of dragonflies resting on it and lots and lots of smaller, immature Common Lizards, maybe about 50 in all.

Young Common Lizard - Thursley, 18 Aug 18

I explored a bit further and headed onto the drier, sandier areas of heathland. It looked good for Sand Lizard but again I dipped out. The sandy path over the hill was good for wasps and I saw quite a few, including some Bee-wolfs and a massive Sand Wasp sp. A male Redstart was a nice find along the path-side. But this was a very quick speed round the site and I didn’t get any definite new species.

I stayed overnight in Poole and caught the ferry back first thing in the morning. Apart from the usual Avocets and terns as we passed Brownsea, I saw very little from the ferry bird-wise, just the odd Gannet and 2 Balearic Shearwaters near Alderney. However, I did see something very interesting. Right in the middle of the Channel, in the shipping lanes, I picked up a shiny, black object which I identified as a cetacean’s head poking out of the water. I then doubted myself as it looked a strange and unexpected shape, and I asked myself whether I was actually looking at a black plastic, upturned dustbin floating in the sea! The sticking-out part was taller than it was wide and very blunt at the top. It did seem to move a bit and I was sure it was indeed a cetacean, and a pretty big one at that estimating the distance and size. But the only whale I could think of with a blunt head was a Sperm Whale, which didn’t look at all right. However, since the Liberation races by at a rate of knots, I wasn’t able to watch it for long at all. I fixed the image in my head and would research it when I returned home. Looking at books and pics online, the answer was that it must have been a Long-finned Pilot Whale ‘spyhopping’ as it looked exactly like what I saw from the deck. Apparently they nearly always go round in groups so if we weren’t hurtling past so quickly I may have seen more of them.

(The photo below shows the nearest I could find on the interwebs which looked like what I saw - note the dustbin-like shape! no?)

*(photo not mine - taken from the NOAA website)*

Just A Bird

Just A Bird

Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

Just A Bird

Friday 31st August 2018

Sunday 19th August 2018

UK HOLIDAY - part 5 : JOURNEY HOME

Just A Bird