The Boy Does Nothing

That's probably what everyone at work thinks when I slope off for an hour at lunchtime. However, if it's a choice between me coming back smelling of booze, or the great outdoors, surely the latter is preferable?

Lots of good stuff around on site this week. New faces include a pair of grey wagtails and this small copper.











Shots of the small copper

A couple of snaps of some familiar faces too - a southern hawker and a common darter, both seen at rest in the wildflower meadow today.





Southern hawker and common darter

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

It's been a week of mixed fortunes here at Eye To The Telescope. I'd been meaning to e-mail a few of my butterfly photos to Central Tonight, in the hope that they might be used at the top of their weather forecast.

Having bagged a decent shot of a painted lady on Thursday, I duly sent it off to the delightful Lucy Kite, who I featured in this blog some months back. On Friday evening I followed this up with shots of a comma and a small tortoiseshell taken a couple of weeks ago.



Lucy with Midlands Today berserker Ashley Blake

I didn't manage to catch the news on Friday evening, but assumed it would probably be a few days until there was any chance of one of my pictures being used. Imagine my surprise when I received word that the painted lady picture had appeared on Friday night.

I'm obviously delighted that it was used, but a bit gutted that I missed it. I'm hopeful that one of the other pictures is used over the next few weeks. I have taken steps to record the programme each night just in case.

Okay, that's Lucy dealt with - now for those diamonds ...

First up is this caterpillar, which I discovered in the garden on Saturday. It was a good couple of inches long and is presumably destined to become a moth of some sort. If anyone has any ideas as to what it might be, I would be keen to know.





A couple of shots of the mystery caterpillar

Next up is the wood sandpiper that turned up at Upton Warren on Saturday. These are great birds in my opinion and one that I will never tire of seeing. As Mrs Reg and I were heading to Webb's garden centre today, I grabbed the opportunity to go and feast my eyes on this elegant wader.





Wood sandpiper

Also present at Upton Warren were good numbers of common and green sandpipers, plus five snipe and a dunlin. I hope to be back at Upton Warren next weekend, where I will hopefully have a bit more time to look around the reserve properly. Today was unfortunately something of a smash and grab job.

Time for one last pic of the day - a large white butterfly, which I snapped at Webb's.



Large white

Together We Are Beautiful

Hordes of butterflies at work this week .. one of the buddleias on site has been covered with peacocks, painted ladies and small tortoiseshells.













Various shots of the butterflies

Also on site, more southern and brown hawkers, and this common darter, which I managed to snap.



Common darter

I've Been Out Walking

With much patience and some luck, I finally managed to get some shots of the southern hawkers at work this week ...







Southern hawkers

On Friday, I made my first July foray onto the patch. Birds seen included common buzzard, sparrowhawk and yellowhammer, whilst butterflies on the wing consisted of large white, meadow brown, speckled wood, green-veined white and gatekeeper.

One Eddie Stobart truck was spotted from the motorway bridge - Ysabel Sophie, taking the year's tally to 153.

Here are a few random pics from the patch ...



Deadly nightshade



Wasp thing



Harlequin ladybird



Blackberries

Welfare Mothers

When Neil Young wrote Welfare Mothers, I suspect he wasn't making reference to the lepidopterists of this world, so I hope you'll forgive the pun in today's title.

However, it has to be said that I have taken my first tentative steps into the vast and imposing waters of all things moth. I'm not quite ready to throw away the water wings and immerse myself fully just yet, but I expect it will happen at some point. At the moment, I'm content to stumble across them whilst on the hunt for birds, butterflies and dragonflies, as opposed to actively pursuing them.

Armed with the Concise Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland, I've already bagged a few species and been able to identify them myself - something that gives me great pleasure. Throw in a few that I've chanced upon over the last few years, such as dark arches, and I've got the beginnings of a life list of sorts.

Today I found a new addition to this list, silver Y, which I observed at work. For once, the sun was shining and there were many butterflies on the wing - commas, painted ladies, gatekeepers and peacocks to name but a few.

Conditions were good for photos and, on the whole, the butterflies were playing ball too.



Silver Y moth



Small white



Peacock





Gatekeepers





Painted ladies

Finally, I think this is a green-veined white, but I still struggle with the white butterflies from time to time.



Green-veined white - or is it?

The wildlife at work has been nothing short of sensational over the past couple of months. Also on the wing today, a couple of southern hawkers, a brown hawker and a common darter. The green woodpeckers were out and about too.



Green woodpecker

I simply must get out on a neglected patch this week. I have Friday morning pencilled in for a stroll up to Weatheroak, where recent sightings include hobby and raven. I spotted a second local red kite just over a week ago near Shirley station, so I think that has to be another possibility, albeit a remote one.

As usual, a full report will follow in due course.

All Apologies

I don't know how many of you follow my tweets on the side of the blog, but lately they seem to be more concerned with Big Brother, the Ashes and digestive biscuits than they do birding. Sorry about that.

Okay, apologies over - back to the matter in hand ...

Only one picture today, and a bit of a macabre one at that. At work they have a number of lights posted in the ground and I've noticed that they attract the creepy crawlies.

However, once inside, it seems the wee beasties can't escape and the lights become littered with the poor blighters' bleached corpses.

As I say, a little grotesque, but interesting all the same.



Dead stuff

I'm not a fan of large spiders, dead or alive, so it took some courage to get close to that fellow on the left of the picture. Yikes - what a whopper!

It's not all doom and gloom, however - there's still plenty of thriving wildlife on site. Best spots this week include two southern hawkers, a brown hawker, some small tortoiseshells, red admirals, commas and a six-spot burnet.

The green woodpeckers remain very active too and can usually be located with a bit of patience and a good ear.

Bizarre moment of the week so far was a juvenile moorhen that did an excellent impression of a ruff. That caused a moment's panic, I can tell you!

I Love It When You Call

A quick round up from the past week. Firstly, the lesser whitethroat that I mentioned last time. Having returned from Devon, I went to pick up Barney from the cattery on Sunday morning and was pretty sure I could hear a lesser whitethroat singing near the Redditch Road, not far from Lower Bittell Reservoir.

What with it being a favourite bird of mine and not having seen one this year, I popped back down there on Monday morning. After a bit of searching, I finally tracked down the bird on the Old Birmingham Road.

After that, I paid a brief visit to Lower Bittell Reservoir. There I saw a linnet, yellowhammer and a green woodpecker, along with a ringlet butterfly and some common blue damselflies.

I've also seen the green woodpeckers at work a few times this week. There are also still plenty of butterflies on site, including this comma and small tortoiseshell that I snapped on Thursday.



Comma



Small tortoiseshell