I’m hoping to test negative for covid very soon as there is already a good level of autumn bird migration happening: If you’re out and about keep your eyes open as almost anything can turn up almost anywhere. I’m hoping to get a walk out somewhere on the coast tomorrow, and then on Tuesday I am heading up to Scotland over two days, with plans to visit a few places along the way. It will be good to be out and about again, though I have enjoyed the enforced pottering around the house.
It’s inevitable that Brenda’s moth total will finally overtake my bird one very soon, but – as I’ve commented before – it’s been a very good run of birds this year and I reckon I can get to 230 if I’m lucky. I’m also trying to get my UK life list total to 300. I ended 2022 with 280 species seen and 1 (quail) only heard, and didn’t think that 300 was likely this year, but the list so far has been, frankly, amazing and shows what happens when one spends more time out and about.
New in the UK for me in 2023 have been; Lapland bunting, American golden plover, goshawk, pallid harrier, wood lark, Pallas’ leaf warbler, night heron, Kentish plover, great reed warbler, velvet scoter, Alpine swift, Hume’s warbler, Isabelline wheatear, pied flycatcher, water pipit and long-billed dowitcher. 16 new UK species bringing me up to 297 (including quail). This list includes a number of long-term “blockers” which I really should have seen earlier, and some birds (like pied flycatcher) which I may have seen as a teenager but wasn’t sure about. It’s great to finally get sightings of all these species.
Brenda is also approaching 300 flower species for the year, and 300 moths is also possible, Maybe we’ll get a triple 300 between us – flowers in 2023, moths in 2023 and my UK life list! And by the end of the year we’ll have also passed the 300 blog entries point, so another triple century!
Brenda writes: “After a night of heavy rain the numbers of moths crammed into my extremely soggy egg boxes was astonishing. It wasn’t possible to do a fully accurate count but there were 85+ large yellow underwings and 37+ setaceous hebrew characters, with turnips pushed into third place with a mere 30+ moths. There were no new moths but it was nice to see a straw dot keeping well out of the scrum on the trap side and a purple bar on the house wall, a moth we recorded at Dungarthill on June 1st. “
No new species for August 19th:
TOTALS TO DATE:
Birds = 215
Moths = 213
Wildflowers = 270