AUTUMNAL FEEL

A still morning on Tuesday 27th at the country park with many of the trees such as these small-leaved lime trees pictured above, displaying the yellow / brown leaves, providing a real autumnal feel to the place. Only a few tree species around the park such as rowan, hawthorn and wild cherry are showing any bright red colours.

The birds passing over the park in the morning were typical of the autumn with one group of 30 redwings flying rapidly west. A small flock of 10 siskins also flew over the car park while a similar flock size of lesser redpolls unusually dropped down onto a tree for a few minutes before continuing on their passage. Other finches noted around the car park were several chaffinches and goldfinches too.

At the pond a water rail called from under the sallow bushes but stayed out of sight. Amongst the wildfowl here were the tufted duck, 60 mallard, 10 gadwall and 4 shoveler but no sign of the pochard seen the day before. On the grazing field pools 150 teal and 100 wigeon and a black-tailed godwit and a snipe were seen. The pair of stonechats were perched up on a bush along the central ditch in the fields.

There was a reasonable catch of moths in the trap at the park on Tuesday morning after a still and cloudy night. Sixty moths of 12 species was a better than average catch for late October. Pictured above is the colourful red-green carpet, the first one of the autumn here of this regular species.

The satellite is only the second one of the year, after the first one showed up in late February. This one pictured above shows the brown spots on each wing each with a faint white "satellite" dot alongside. The individual caught earlier in the year was a brightly marked individual with a clear white spot on each wing as opposed to the brown spots here.

Other moths recorded were streak, yellow-line quaker, large wainscot, green-brindled crescent, mallow, feathered thorn, November sps, barred sallow, large yellow underwing and dusky-lemon sallow.