March 21st 2010

This morning’s fog started to develop just after 6am and did not lift till 10am so half the morning was wasted with visibility down to 20 meters and we only had 2 Red-legged Partridge to show for our efforts in the valley.
By the time we started to walk back from toft bay, Draycote Water the sun finally burnt off the last of the fog and we found a newly arrived male Common Scoter feeding reasonably close inshore then the 2 Great-northern Divers from farborough spit but distant and a group of 6 Sand Martin with a single first of the year Swallow near the visitors centre which had a March Moth on the wall. After a heated confrontation with a cyclist Dave thought it would be wise to keep me away from anything remotely human and took us to Napton on the Hill to search for migrants.
We had only walked about forty yards from the car and the buggar found a cracking male Firecrest in a dell near the kissing gate which was very mobile and we soon had a few others on too it. Not surprisingly it went walk about after 45 minutes but returned about 90 minutes later. Boy o boy we needed a bit of colour after a drab winter. Other species on the hill were 2 Raven, 4 Buzzard, Nuthatch calling, 5 Mistle Thrush, Goldcrest and a lone Redwing but no sign of any other migrants.


Firecrest by Andy Hale
On the mothing front it was a little cooler than the previous night but Dave still managed 16 moths of 6 species while I had 7 moths of 5 species so Bob and April came around mid-afternoon to do some of them justice.

Twin-spotted Quaker

Common Quaker

Hebrew Character

Clouded Drab
all by Bob Hazell

Richard