Snakes and Elephants

13:00 hours, Just got home from work early to get ready for holiday to be greeted by a distraught wife!
' There's a snake in the flower pots ' she exclaimed, on closer inspection a fantastic Elephant Hawkmoth Caterpillar was found!

House Martins revisited

Monday 2nd and Tuesday 3rd of August saw the House Martins revisited at Horning Hall and Waxham respectively.
At Horning 26 birds were caught with 17 new and 9 retraps of which 21 were adults and 5 juv's. 5 of the retraps were ringed this year and the other 4 from 2009.
The 2 Barn Owl chicks were also ringed.
At Waxham 21 birds were caught with 13 new and 8 retraps, all from this year. 17 were adults and 4 juveniles.

 Arthur looking rather surprised that we have caught anything !

Adult

Juvenile

Garden Ringing

On Sunday morning one 40 foot net was put up in the garden for a couple of hours.
This resulted in 22 new birds being ringed, all of them juveniles.
Dunnock 3
Robin 4
Blue Tit 9
Great Tit 3
Chaffinch 3


The Robins were in various plumages from completely speckled to a few signs of red coming through.

The speckly one

Some red

Even more red

Haddiscoe round 2

The second session at Haddiscoe took place Friday 30th evening/Sat 31st. morning. Unfortunately the weather was against us with Friday night being a little too windy and Saturday morning having no wind but light showers through out.
61 birds were ringed and 8 re-trapped. 
Ringing totals, retraps in brackets;
Swallow 2
Sedge Warbler 21
Reed Warbler 31 (4) one from 2006, two from 2007 and another from 2009, all originally ringed at Haddiscoe.
Willow Warbler 1
Bearded Tit 2 (4) three from 2009 and one from last week
Linnet 1
Reed Bunting 3

3j Willow Warbler

Due to the weather nothing much was seen moving and the only insects were Brown Hawkers.  

Haddiscoe reed bed

The forecast for Saturday morning was light winds, so with this in mind the first reed bed session of the year at Haddiscoe Island was planned. The usual 5 rides were cut  on Thursday night ready for Saturday.With the nets being erected on Friday night.

One of the net rides

As we drove down to the reed bed on Friday night a Weasel was seen running from a dyke across the road with prey in its mouth. It saw us and dropped the prey, so we went to investigate. To our surprise the prey was found to be a Water Rail chick!

Water Rail - meal

2 nets were left open,whilst we put the rest up, mainly to try and catch some Swallows.

In the end we caught 14 birds: 7 Swallow, 6 Reed Warbler ( one a control) and a Reed Bunting.

We woke at 3.45am Saturday morning to open the nets and were greeted to very light winds and mist all over the marsh.

Sunrise over Haddiscoe Island

After an hour or so the mist cleared, the wind kept light with some cloud cover all producing ideal ringing conditions. A couple of surprise captures in the reed bed were a Skylark (1st. for the site) and a Meadow Pipit .

Juvenile Skylark

Adult Female Meadow Pipit

Saturday morning produced;

Skylark 1

Meadow Pipit 1

Sedge Warbler 11

Reed Warbler 40 and 1 control and 4 retraps, 2 were originally ringed in 2007, 1 each from 2008 and 2009.

Bearded Tit 19 and 2 retraps both from 2009

Reed Bunting 12.
A very good start to the reed bed season with Friday night/Saturday morning producing 97 new birds, 2 controls and 6 retraps ( All the retraps were originally ringed at Haddiscoe). Most of the Reed Warblers were adults.

Adult female and 3J female Bearded Tit

Adult Male Bearded Tit

3J Male Bearded Tit

Adult Sedge Warbler, note the overall wear on the bird.

3J Sedge Warbler.

A Quail was heard 'singing' in nearby fields, 2 Crane were seen and heard calling overhead , a Hobby flying past and several Little Egrets and Marsh Harriers were on view.

Numerous Brown Hawkers and Black tailed skimmers were seen.

Brown Hawker

Black tailed Skimmer

Too Windy again

Saturday morning dawned with a strong SW wind, making it far too windy for any mist netting. The afternoon was still windy but quite pleasant with the temperature approaching 20 degrees C.
So I decided to have a walk at Winterton North Dunes to see how the breeding Stonechats were getting on.
Unfortunately the bird life was pretty sparse with only 2 Yellowhammer singing, the pair of Stonechats doing nothing, several young Chiffs and a vocal Green Woodpecker being all I could muster.
However the Butterflies and Dragonflies made up for this with a superb Dark Green Fritillary being the highlight.

Dark Green Fritillary

Other Butterfly species seen were; Small and Large Skippers,Small Heath, Small Copper, Gate Keeper,

Meadow Brown, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral and lots of Large Whites.

Small Skipper

Large Skipper

Dragonflies seen ; Emperor, Brown Hawker, Migrant Hawker, Ruddy Darter,Black tailed Skimmer, Common Darter, Blue tailed, Common blue and Emerald Damselflies.

Emerald Damselfly

Migrant Hawker

Numerous Cinnabar Caterpillars were feeding on the ragwort.

Cinnabar

More House Martins

We just found another site that has breeding House Martin, 34 occupied nests were noted. 4 nets were deployed  on the evening of Friday 16th.

The new site.

31 adults and 3 juveniles were ringed, all new, with Tony slightly edging the honours. Not to be out done in the future, at the end of the session Gary trod on Tony's net and flattened it!!!!
 All the nets are in need of repair with several holes appearing.
Thanks to Peter for the permission at a fantastic site. 

3J House Martin