Today was mostly spent mixing tracks for my new album, which is now almost complete: It’s great finally getting to hear the finished tracks and try to decide what order I want them in on the final CD! So because of that I was with my sound engineer friend Mark Fawcett in his studio, but in the evening we decided, along with Brenda, that a visit to Cley was in order. Mark has always had an interest in birding but has been developing it recently.
So off we went on a nice, if slightly breezy, evening. Of particular interest was finding the long-staying long-billed dowitcher again: Partly because Mark hadn’t seen it, but also because the species has a particular connection to his family as his grandfather discovered one of these trans-Atlantic vagrants at Cley in the 1950s, and the story has become part of the Fawcett family folklore! And there it was, a little distant but totally recognisable – Mark was delighted.
And we were all delighted as we were leaving the reserve to see, briefly, some juvenile bearded tits in the reeds: I had too long a lens on the camera (an unusual predicament!) to get the bird fully in the frame, but I did manage one photo which I’m pleased with.
Brenda writes: “There was a good selection of moths in the trap today including both silver y and plain golden y. One new micro was identified, hypsopygia glaucinalis, although there were plenty more!
In my travels today I saw fat hen and Indian, or Himalayan, balsam. In the evening we met up with Mark at Cley NWT. There are some funny looking birds around at the moment, young birds and those in eclipse (going out of summer plumage). The highlight was a family of bearded tits which flew over and we got lovely views of two young. There were also several species of flower new for this year; tufted vetch, gypsywort and common water plantain.”
New species for July 12th:
Moths: hypsopygia glaucinalis
Flowers: fat hen, Indian balsam, tufted vetch, gypsywort, common water plantain
TOTALS TO DATE:
Birds = 206
Moths = 183
Wildflowers = 240