Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Durlston - 7th October 2012

An early start over to Durlston Country Park as we had the honour of opening up the moth trap as the rangers were busy first thing with other duties - anytime lads!
A bit of a tricky start as when I lifted the bulb holder off the Robinson trap the bulb just disintegrated - in the words of Bart Simpson "it wasn't me"!! Anyway, with it being rather chilly overnight there wasn't an awful lot in there and perhaps the bulb had blown earlier as it was turned off when we arrived? A lone Silver Y was the only migrant and the two below aren't ones that I got in west Kent so it was good to see them despite them both being quite common.

Beaded Chestnut 

Frosted Orange

With plenty of finches passing overhead we decided to have a walk over towards the Lighthouse Gully (I love a good gully me). What a cracking bit of habo, though a tad more extensive than Dengemarsh Gully but I fancy finding a few bits in here over the years to come.

Lighthouse Gully

Bird totals were: Brambling 2, Merlin 1, Siskin 24 (small groups east), Bullfinch 6, Blackcap 43, Jay 8 (flock of 7), Brent Goose 2 west, Chiffchaff 12, Great Spotted Woodpecker 3 together on telegraph pole by lighthouse, Wheatear 2, Peregrine 1, Skylark 11, Song Thrush 6, Redpoll 4.
Looking forward to spending more time here to discover which are the best areas. With William moaning that he was hungry we decided that a late full English in Swanage was the order of the day.

Back at home we emptied the moth trap with similar results to Durlston although Deep-brown Dart and Pink-barred Sallow were nice to see as well as a Blair's Shoulder Knot and a Ted Rogers micro Phyllonorycter messaniella (Bradley and Fletcher no321 - sorry!!)


Deep-brown Dart


Pink-barred Sallow 


 Phyllonorycter messaniella (I need a decent macro for the micros!)


Grey Dagger 
The caterpillar has been parasitised by a waspy thing (ichneumon?) and it will become the food source for all the baby waspy things - so I'm told! Anyway, at least I can safely tick Grey Dagger without looking at it's bits!


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