August 17th 2008

The rain finally arrived early morning so by the time me and Dave arrived in the valley it had gone, replaced by sunshine and blue sky’s and was probably responsible for the 3 Wheatears in a ploughed field along Flecknoe Rd.
A walk out to rainbow corner, Draycote Water produced 6 newly arrived Black Terns, Shoveler 5, Teal 5, Common Tern, Oystercatchers 2 circling and 50+ Sand Martins resting on the sailing boats near the café but we couldn’t locate the Goosanders. Other birds of note were Grey Wagtail and Buzzard 3 and we spent some time photographing the Red Underwing which we found on the café wall.

Red Underwing
After our usual calorie conscious breakfast at Long Itchington we went to Brandon Marsh where we had 9 Green Sandpiper, 3 Dunlin, 400 Lapwing, Buzzard 3 and Common Tern 2. Also present were Brown Hawker, Black-tailed Skimmer, Common Hawker, Common Darter, Common Blue and Red-eyed Damselfly and a few Speckled Woods, Red Admirals and Common Blue’s.
Back home and my moth trap was heaving with over 250 moths of 40 species, the best catch for some time and included a record count for the garden of 167 Large Yellow Underwings.
I had planned to catch up with the Olympics this afternoon but text messages and phone calls alerted me to a good passage of Black Terns at Draycote along with Artic Terns so went back down and managed Black Tern 22 and Artic Terns 7 and a Hobby over biggen bay.

Richard