Let the ticks flow...

With great weather and the lifting of the non-essential travel restrictions, it was a chance to get out and about and visit sites slight further from home.

On Saturday, I met up with Phil and he took me to a new site, by Penderyn, to try to find the Pied Flycatcher that Martin Bevan had found earlier in the spring. No sign of the Pied Fly, but a Spotted Flik provided some compensation.

From there we went over to Cwn Cadlan LNR to look for Whinchat. A family party of Kestrel, at least 4 birds, were vocal and visable. The adult male was kept busy bring in food for his youngsters and his success rate when hunting was second to none, as he appeared to make a kill on every hunt/dive we saw.

Despite, or because of the, numerous adult and juvenile Stonechats, there was no sign of any Whinchat and we had just about given up hope when Phil called on. Unfortunately all I could see was another juv Stonechat, until t dropped of the fence and revealed the Whinchat.

The only other sighting of note was numerous Ermine moths congregating round a couple of Hazel shrubs/trees. Photo's shows these to be Bird-cherry Ermines, Yponomeuta evonymella.

 Sunday was a day for twitching, with two targets, both quite local. Unfortunately, in both cases we didn't quite get the right spot first time, but we eventually got to the correct site for the Forester moth, Adscita statices, above Nantgarw.  What a gorgeous little moth - much brighter than in the field guides.

 At the Forester site we met Paul Denning who provided more detailed instructions for the second twitch species, and led us to the Narrow-leaved Helleborines just north of the M4. There were a number of plants in flower, alongside a number of Broad-leaved Helleborines, allowing close comparison between the two species. There was also meant to be a flowering spike of Yellow Bird's-nest, but we could not locate it. I did find one spike that had been trodden on, and three others that had gone to seed.

Then to finish the weekend off, I put the moth trap out last night and was rewarded with my best ever catch at home, some 53 moths of 37 species, including no fewer than 9 lifers, the highlight being a Leopard Moth on the back wall.

The lifers were: Clepsis consimilana (x2), Leopard Moth Zeuzera pyrina, Dioryctria abietella, Scoparia ancipitella, Eudonia delunella, Eudonia mercurella, Muslin Footman Nudaria mundana, Fan-foot Zanclognatha tarsipenalis, and Marbled Beauty Cryphia domestica. 

All of a flutter

With social media awash with photo's of the Dark Green Fritillaries and Marbled Whites from up at the Giant's tooth, I thought I'd better take a walk up. I had been up early on Tuesday to do my BBS, on the last date possible. That was done too early for any flutterbys, but the highlight was a pair of juv Peregrines, that broke off their play to check me out.

Sunday was forecast to be dry, if windy. The wind on the top of the ridge wasn't too bad, but just off the top in the lea of the Giant's tooth it was really strong. Despite that, a couple of Fritillaries where zooming about, into and against the wind. It's amazing that something as seemingly as frail as a butterfly can not only fly into such a headwind, but actually make fairly rapid progress.

The Marbled Whites, however, decided to keep their heads down, but a single flushed was enough to get me a year tick. Higher up a single Greyling also added itself to me year list, but didn't hang around long enough for a photo.

Supporting cast included Meadow Brown, Ringlet, Small Heath, Small and Large Skippers. Surprisingly no Silver Y's - I haven't seen that many at all this year so far.  

Additional find up on the site was a single Bishop's-mitre Shieldbug.

 Whilst on the walk up, I disturbed a juv Grass Snake from the road side. My first snake for a while. Avian highlights was up to 21 Crossbill flying around, most in around the conifers my the A470 underpass, but several fly overs whilst on the ridge.