Four-dotted Footman. Caught at light (160w MVB).
When I put the MV out last night it was lovely and cloudy, warm and humid, but I was very disappointed when at midnight I popped out and found clear skies and dropping temps. Imagine my surprise when I pulled out a new moth for me and my garden in the form of a Four-dotted Footman - according to Barry Dickerson's uber Hunts stats spreadsheet, this is the first in my square since 1878!
© Steve Dudley / Panasonic Lumix FZ-30
One of my favourite moths, Eyed Hawkmoth, and only the third year I have caught them here (2004, 2007).
All pink moths are smart! Elephant Hawkmoth. The fourth consecutive year I've caught this species.
Fan-foot - not regular here by any means.
Many of us enjoy seeing Hummingbird Hawkmoths in our gardens in summer, but this evening whilst having dinner, I was amazed to find a Hummer roosting above us on one of the kitchen velux roof windows!
Anyone with even a smidgin of wildlife interest wont have failed to either notice or hear about the recent butterfly 'invasion' . Well, what probably amounts to millions of Painted Lady butterflies were seen moving north through Britain over the last week or so. They originate from North Africa and Butterfly Conservation want your records. Well, I saw a few thousand go through the garden and over the last few days they've stopped moving through and are now hanging around in good numbers. Apparently there's also been good numbers of Hummingbird Hawkmoths, but I aint seen any yet, but we do record them annually in the garden.
One of the other notable things in the garden are our Tree Sparrows. These cheeky chappies nest around the gardens here and the first fledglings are now begging for food in the garden. This one likes to sit on the phone wire outside on of my office windows and chirp his little head off! 
Purple Thorn, Farcet Fen, 5 Apr 09. Caught at light (160w MVB).
Hebrew Character, Farcet Fen, 5 Apr 09. Caught at light (160w MVB).
The Herald, Farcet Fen, 5 Apr 09. Caught at light (160w MVB).
Not a great image, but this male Chaffinch turned up in the garden yesterday (along with a nice fem Bramble Finch which didn't hang around for photos). I've never seen anything like this on a wild bird. I've seen captive birds with these 'swellings', but only species like Zebra Finches, etc. Is it an avian equivalent of elephantiasis (although with humans this is most commonly associated with legs and genitals)? I can't find anything on the web or in avian dictionaries covering this.
Staring bleary-eyed through the bathroom window I noticed a strange shape in the all too regular lines of our large pile of wood (hangover from the recent house renovation). No glasses to hand but knowing it was (a) obviously a bird, (b) a wee bit too big for the usual wood pile Wren and (c) totally wrong for a pheasant (see how attuned by birding senses are just minutes after rising) I reached for a pair of bins from the office and bingo! A smashing young male Sparrowhawk! Showing signs of naive youth, sitting low down (only 2ft above the ground) right by one of the feeding stations isn't the best way to lay in wait of its prey. Or perhaps it chased something in to the wood pile?
During the recent snow we had a wee flock of 12 Long-tailed Tits turn up in the garden. They arrived with the snow and they left with the snow. Only my fourth record for the garden/fen.
We had a sleepless night last night. The cause. The gradual slip of the snow on the roof as temperatures fluctuate. The snow on the roof is a solid block of snow ice and during the late evening and all last night this 17m x 6m block began to slip downwards! It judders down the slate roof and off the edge of the roof, hanging before the next judder cuases large chunks to break off and down with a thud on to the kitchen roof and the canopy.
Here's a lump hanging over the kitchen roof (above) and the build up on the canopy roof (below) - itself sliding off on to the ground below. It makes one hell of a thud when a block falls from the main roof on to the canopy 3m below.
We saw this fox from the living room window yesterday. I spotted what I thought was a characteristic 'pounce' through the bushes. Waited and eventually this animal appeared on the edge of the treeline and sat watching over teh snowscape for a few minutes.
Just look at that fantastic tail. This is only the fourth time I've seen fox on the fen. I've rarely come across any sign of them either which indicates that they are genuinely scarce here. Interestingly our walk round the fen yesterday afternoon found fox prints in the snow which looked like from Saturday.
Mr Fox is happy to help himself to any of our plump Pheasants! They do taste very nice!
Redwing diffing on edge of garden dyke. These winter thrushes know how to cope with snow! The Blackbirds spend most of their time defending the feeding stations, the Song Thrush just looks like its in a sulk. But this Redwing was busy pulling out leaves from under the snow, digging in the leaf-litter it exposed and finding plenty to feed on. A great bit of behaviour from a male Pied Wag then followed and feed in the holes the Redwing abandoned.
7.00am waiting to see how bad it was and whether we could get Liz to the station. The station run was later aborted when the radio told us that Peterborough had copped the best/worst of the overnight snow, the trains were stuffed and central Pboro was either clogged with snow or clogged with car playing dodgems!
7.30am and blanket snow - a nice thick layer of the pucker, crunching-under-foot, snowman-building, snow-balling white stuff.
Grit isn't something we know about in the fens. Mind you, nipping into the village and then to the supermarket, it doesn't seem to be something they use much round here anyway!
Cock-bobbin and a dish-washer picking away below one of the feeders.
Plenty of dickies under one of the three feeder sites. The cage is to keep the colly-doves and pheasants from scoffing all the seed that falls to the ground! Chaffinch numbers bumped up again with some obvious continentals amongst them. Fieldfares also in the garden and a Snipe nearly landed in the garden! It decided on the field edge by the house and looking decidely lost, it departed high to the west!
Treeps and Greenfincks at one of the feeders. Note the adult Treep (completely dark bill) on the right has white millet in its gob. They do like red and white millet. The bird on the left is a first-winter bird with extensive pale to base to the bill (some winter adults do show a little pale at the bill-base but not to this extent). Toadsnatchers and Yellow Bunting also in the garden today.
A close up of one of the 50+ Treeps around the house at the minute. A lovely, nice adult. Just look how varied its plumage is. Definately not just a boring sparrow!
Blobs in the snow! Two of five hares hunkered in the field behind the house throughout the day. Watching these I chanced upon a roaming flock of 135+ Skylarks which are new in. I think they struggled to find any bare ground on which to feed in all this!
Still my favourite view of the house! We've been 'in' no.4 (this end) for four weeks now and the pace of progress in no.3 has been relentless. Full update on our renovation blog.
Fuck! Frankie Boyle live at the Peterborough Broadway!! What a great gig!!! The not-so-PC comic gave however what I thought was a short set at under one and a half hours, but, and here's the rub, I don't think the fuckers who started leaving as he was still saying his 'thank you Peterborough' line helped! I'm used to encores at the Broadway, and I'm sure Frankie had more material to deliver, but, on sight of the arseholes who wanted to get out of the car park before the rush leaving the theatre when he was still facing the audience on stage, he will no doubt of thought 'fuck it!'. No, I don't blame Frankie. Once he had left the stage I saw the side curtain twitch. No doubt someone making sure an encore wasn't needed as most of the useless tossers in the audience were already on their feet and running for the exit! What the fuck?! You might have got the impression the show was crap. And perhaps this the message Frankie got as he walked back to his dressing room, picked up his list of tour dates and drew a thick black line through Peterborough Broadway muttering 'brainless twats'. He wasn't wrong when he suggested Peterborough city centre looked like a 'holding pen for the Jeremy Kyle show' - a line he probably uses for every town, but in this instance, how very observant Frankie!
Well, I was bought Stuart Maconie's Pies and Prejudice for my birthday last month. I was really looking forward to reading it, but to be honest, apart from the very occasional chuckle, it bored the fillings out of my teeth.
