May 8th 2011

After the heavy but welcome overnight rain Napton Reservoir produced Wood Sandpiper early this morning wandering among the sleeping fishermen near the car park. All the usual warblers were either seen or heard with the only other birds of note being 2 Common Tern, Tree Sparrow and Grey Wagtail.
Moved on to Flecknoe for a migration watch and a number of Swifts came in front of the various weather fronts numbering 700+ in total. Also on the move were 8 Buzzard high plus 6 local birds seen, Sparrowhawk, Peregrine, 2 Hobby and my first Brown Argus butterfly of the year. No sign of any Spotted Flycatcher or Turtle Dove yet but good numbers of Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat in the area plus 3 Red-legged Partridge, 4 Yellow Wagtail, 7 Bullfinch and Great-spotted Woodpecker.

The reason for last Fridays train being a no show was due to a high fire risk in the area it was going to – well at least the rain over the last two days should put paid to that continuing.

Sundogs I’ve seen um before but never new what they were called. Pa Phillips captured these over Rugby 5:30pm. It’s the reflection of the sun off hexagonal ice crystals




Finally the scores on the doors for our garden moth year list is 87 for me and 91 for Dave so both of us are looking good for a record year though the long term forecast of cooler weather later in the month might put paid to that.

Richard