Cracking!

I spend a pleasant morning in the company of Martin Bevan, as we did our BBS upland square. It felt really strange to be stripping off fleeces and birding in shirtsleeves on this early visit - I can only recall doing that once before, in the twenty-odd years we've been doing that square.

As it was so warm from the start, we saw a Speckled Wood on the first leg, which is unheard of and also, a Brown Silver-line moth.

I had my first Swallows of the year and also my first Redstart on that first transect.

We had more Stonechats than you could shake a stick at, but it was all at once, near the end that we had our best birds We saw a Male Cuckoo, pursued by a female, flying past a little way off  but the best two birds I'll leave Martin to tell of, as it was he who found them.

From the top of Mynydd Merthyr, we could see a column of smoke from a mountain fire, somewhere over Maesteg way and at the top of it there appeared to be a Pyrocumulus cloud, though it wasn't typical, as it had been forced to spread out, due to the boundary of two thermal layers in the atmosphere. 

On the way back down, we saw a Common Heat moth and four more species of butterfly; these being Orange Tip, Small White , Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock.

While concentrating on watching the Small white, as it flew past, Martin stopped me and pointed down. There sunning itself on the forest road was a male Slow Worm. If Martin hadn't stopped me, I would probably have stepped on it.