Photographs

Striped hawk moth

On the 4th I found my second rare migrant Hawk Moth in just over a week, it was a real surprise to find this one as soon as I opened the trap.

Striped hawk moth

Arguably this one is even more attractive than last weeks Bedstraw, sadly neither of the rare ones are anywhwere as near tolerant of me as the regular Privet and Elephant Hawks that will sit on me indefinitely.

Striped hawk moth

These wlcome migrants from the continent don't arrive every year, when they do they start in early June and breed here in the UK.

Striped hawk moth

I follow the Portland Observatory web site moth reports and have noticed these cropping up very often this year, a expect they have spread up to Aylesbury slowly, due to the nubers that are here this year.

Striped hawk moth

I have only ever seen one of these once beforeand thst was in the brilliant moth traps at Portland Obs, at least 10 years ago.

Muntjack

On the same evening as the hawk moth, I saw a mother and young muntjac run along the grass strip opposite our house, they were so fast they were out of site before I could get to the front door with my camera.

Muntjack

We had regular deer sightings almost every evening for a couple of weeks two years ago, but none since, which made it even more surprising when a male ran past in the same direction about 15 minutes later.

Muntjack

This time I got to the front door in time to get a string of shots of his rear end as it ran on. the photos were OK but the poses were not so good, mostly back ends ends and no faces.

Muntjack

When the deer was about 100 meters from me it suddenly stopped dead and turned around, unacountably running at top speed back the way he had gone, and right past me about 20 meters away. He kept running at top speed until it nearly reached the busy A41 and disappeared into some bushes.

Muntjack

It was a frustrating watch because it was easy to photograph when I could only see its rear, and too fast when it was running towards me and coming out of the sun, the end result was no good photos but great pleasure in watching him.

Muntjack

Muntjacs were introduced into the UK around 1900, when they were released from Woburn Abbey which is less than 40 miles from here, we are fortunate to have muntjacs and Chinese water deer around our home.

Long tailed shrike

After my very distant visit to the long tailed shrike at the end of last month, I went back on the 7th for a second try to get some photos, hopefully a bit closer this time.

Long tailed shrike

I was amazed that it was still on the same site, it appears to have been around since the 8th of June at least, now over a month, it has a good food supply where it is so probably no need to move on.

Long tailed shrike

The first time I visited all of the birders were standing in a lane looking along a hedgerow that ran across the field and away from the birders, and the bird was a long way back from the throng along the hedgerow.

Long tailed shrike

This time when I arrived one man with a scope was in the lane and twenty or so birders had walked along a footpath next to the hedgerow and were watching the bird in a bush, needless to say I joined them, but the bird had disappeared for a while.

Long tailed shrike

In the couple of hours I was there it showed quite well for twenty minutes or so, but never as closely as I was told it sometimes did, it clearly does show well at times as there are now hundreds of photos of it on the internet.

Long tailed shrike

The bird does show well, but with an issue for photographers as it is generally visible sitting in bushes with the sun behind them so it is usually in shade, I believe the light may be better in the evening. The shadow does make the bird look more colourfull turning the pale grey back into a lovely dark blue.

Yellow hammer

I bump into these very rarely now so it was a surprise when it flew in and landed in shot of the shrike and just sat watching it less than a meter away.

Long tailed blue

On the 18th we finally got around to revisiting the secret, well known spot for long tailed blue butterflies, near Whitehawk, Brighton that I last visited in 2020, this time there were less people and I think slightly more butterflies.

Long tailed blue

I avoided going during the heat-wave, but when I arrived I thought the weather was too overcast and breezy for butterflies. The last time we visited there were lots of people looking but this time we met only one very helpful man, who found one within a few minutes of us arriving.

Long tailed blue

We kept seeing groups of 3 or 4 blues taking part in aerial dog fights and occassionally landing, the groups were a mixture of common and long tailed blues.

Long tailed blue

They flew around in frantic berserk patterns, sometimes going away but sometimes landing on the everlasting sweet peas or the myriad of seed heads that were on the site.

Long tailed blue

When we visited in 2020 there had been a good direction of where they were on a well known wildlife website and the small patch where the insects were known to be was almost completely trampled flat, this time the whole patch was in good condition with a few trampled paths around the hot spots, mostly clumps of the wild sweet pea.

Long tailed blue

These insects should be on the continental mainland not in the UK, they are known to migrate over in some rare years, but it is thought that they have been breeding on this rather unimposing little patch of rough ground for about ten years.

Long tailed blue

I must admit I always get a bit annoyed when people tell, on the net, about the rarity they have seen, but don't tell you where it was, but I also realise that too much publicity can destroy the micro environment and the subject they are talking about, so apologies for the not too clear directions, but bit of research on the net should give you a good idea.

Common blue

Before I had taken any photos I saw one of the dog fighters land on a flower, being optomistic I thought it must be a long tail and started taking photos, but sadly it was only a common blue, in lovely condition and on a stunning flower.

Mistle thrush

We don't see either of our resident thrushes very often where we live, song thrushes turn up occassionally in the back garden in servere winter weather, and we have seen a mistle thrush once or twice each year since we have lived here.

Mistle thrush

There are only about 150,00 pairs of the much larger mistle thrush in Britain, but 1.2 million pairs of song thrushes, both are in noticable decline.

Mistle thrush

So we were quite surprised to see two largeish pale beige birds on the grass opposite the house on the 28th, at first we thought they were a pair of juvenile green woodpeckers which breed in the trees near us, but sadly they were the rarer but duller thrushes.

Mistle thrush

The heat wave had just ended, the weather was damp and murky, bad light for photography and mistle thrushes are notoriously difficult to approach so I decided to sneak into the car and drive it along the road next to the grass to get nearer the birds.

Mistle thrush

Hybrid cars can be good for bird stalking as long as they stay in electic mod, unfortunately when they feel like it they just revert to petrol and the engine starts up makeing a noise, not so go for bird stalking.