Today saw bright sunshine and a very busy butterfly transect, as well as nailing Syrphus ribesii and finding Holly Leaf Gall Fly mines while stalking hovers. I also spotted some Meadow Buttercup, some of which is in flower.
15th May
If yesterday was warm (16 degrees) today was hot (19 degrees), and hovers were again out in full force, albeit most I saw were Syrphus, probably ribesii. I did also see a couple of Rhingia campestris, the first one caught and the second one too obvious to even catch now I have my eye in. There was another Common Roller (Ancylis badiana) micro moth on the banking, and today's tick, which I thought I wasn't going to get, was Water Crowfoot in flower on the edge of the pond/spillway. Nice little flower. Butterflies, notably GVWs and Orange Tips, were again all over the place, and the GVWs in particular seemed drawn to the apple blossom beside the spillway.
I'm going to have to get to grips with grasses, or I'll put it off until they're not in their best shape. It doesn't fill me with much enthusiasm though. I almost forgot, the pond edge is swarming with thousands and thousands of tadpoles.
The 15th ended with a trip to set the moth trap up and recording Soprano Pipistrelle and Clouded Silver. Trapping turned up additional Water Carpet (2) and The Herald (2), along with numerous nice Caddisflies of unknown identity
17th-18th weekend
A big weekend with some mothing and a couple of nice sunny days to work with. A brief stop in on Saturday night saw Pipistrelles, a pair of Tawny Owl, a nice Roe Deer and three spp. of moth. There was also an overhead calling Common Sandpiper on its way north, but I'm not certain enough to record it. A sunny Sunday saw the addition of another micro moth and a small collection of vascular plants. These are the additions:
| Cerastium fontanum | Common Mouse-ear | 18/05/2014 |
| Galium palustre | Marsh-bedstraw | 18/05/2014 |
| Solanum dulcamara | Bittersweet | 18/05/2014 |
| Stellaria media | Common Chickweed | 18/05/2014 |
| Syndemis musculana | Dark-barred Twist | 18/05/2014 |
| Strix aluco | Tawny Owl | 17/05/2014 |
| Ecliptopera silaceata | Small Phoenix | 17/05/2014 |
| Xanthorhoe designata | Flame Carpet | 17/05/2014 |
| Capreolus capreolus | Roe Deer | 17/05/2014 |
| Pipistrellus | Pipistrelle Bat species | 17/05/2014 |
19th May
An overnight moth trap picked up a Poplar Hawk Moth for one of the year's highlights as I reached 2/3 of target at 333.
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