Diving beetle
03 Aug 2022
A large Diving Beetle unexpectedly crawling around in my moth trap this morning. They really are huge – one-two inches – and quite fierce-looking. They sometimes fly around at night in search of water so I put it in my pond, where it seemed quite content.
Jeremy
daytime moth
02 Aug 2022
A humming-bird hawkmoth was a welcome interruption to an outdoor committee meeting this evening, appropriately discussing SS conservation issues. Amazingly, these little beauties migrate here from Europe – how many wingbeats does that take?
Jeremy
stonechats
30 Jul 2022
It seems that stonechats have nested successfully at each end of SS, a pair by the Coastguards in the North and behind the Martello in the South. They sit up very helpfully on the topmost spray of bushes and call, as the name suggests, like two stones being crunched together.
Jeremy
nightjars
27 Jul 2022
Nightjars are still churring on the Heath, but only intermittently now as they near the end of their season. Still exciting to have one glide past in the gloaming, though, doing its own moth-catching.
Jeremy
moth camouflage
24 Jul 2022
Can you spot this Peppered Moth on our paving? Great camouflage.
jeremy
starlings
19 Jul 2022
Various people have asked me about the dense flock of 'black' birds that keeps whooshing around in a tightly-packed formation, settling occasionally on the wires like something out of Hitchcock's The Birds. They're starlings, a mixed flock of adults and juveniles (the brown ones). Quite good to see them in fact since starling numbers in Britain have declined sharply in recent years.
Jeremy
Butterflies
16 Jul 2022
I spoke too soon (see last post). There was a sudden effusion of Gatekeepers today, small orangey brown butterflies with two tiny white dots in the eye-spot, quite distinct from the Meadow Browns.
Jeremy
butterflies
15 Jul 2022
Fewer butterflies around than normal, I'm afraid. The buddleia is usually swarming with red admirals, peacocks, painted ladies and graylings by now. Maybe they'll come later with this southerly airstream bringing the extreme heat. Maybe ...
Jeremy
Oak Eggar
10 Jul 2022
Two Oak Eggars in my moth trap – the first I've had in my garden. Large furry moths with a lovely buff colour, and I think they were females.
Jeremy M
signs of autumn
09 Jul 2022
Swallows on the wires and sand martins tracking South. Also two common sandpipers on the pools – post-breeding migrants from Scotland or the North of England probably.
Jeremy Mynott
