Local Wildlife Sightings May 2021

 The cold, dry conditions of April continued into May, only to be replaced on the 3rd when a storm blew in from the Atlantic, giving us cold, wet conditions instead! There followed a few more cold days before the wind changed to a westerly, bringing in regular low pressure systems, cool weather and lots of rain. This was more like the springs of old, when I was growing up in Yorkshire! Although the weather was depressing, the rain did at least cause vegetation to grow rapidly, providing a lush carpet of wild flowers and grasses which might, if the weather ever warmed up, provide plenty of insect life - eventually.

 I recorded my first local yellow wagtail of the year at Hatchpen Farm on the 1st and, just before the storm arrived on the 3rd, I finally saw willow warblers on The Heath - one at either end. Wheatears stayed around at Greys Farm until at least the 6th, the first lesser whitethroats appeared (two weeks late) from the 5th (in Reed), with three recorded along the Icknield Way on the 7th. After much searching I managed to track down a marsh tit in Rokey Wood (Reed) on the 5th - I fear that this is a species that is just hanging on in my area and may well become locally extinct soon. A swift was seen in Royston on the 8th, but there was no obvious sign of a general arrival - presumably the birds were waiting for better weather before they start nesting.

Corn Bunting in a Field of Rape, Hatchpen Farm, 5 May

Although bird watching was a pretty depressing affair, there were occasional highlights. On the 11th I encountered not one but two reed warblers on a walk up the Icknield Way. Although reedbeds are pretty scarce in the Royston area it is not unusual to see reed (and sedge) warblers here on passage, but I've never come across two here on the same day! The following day I saw my first local house martin of the year at Hatchpen Farm. After a few years' absence, rape is being grown again in my area and I noted what has recently become a local rarity (a reed bunting!) in a field of rape, alongside its much more common cousins - corn buntings (see image above). There was no sign of garden warblers locally this year (although my coverage of the area was patchy, so birds may have gone unnoticed). However, spotted flycatchers did return to their familiar haunts in good numbers with five being recorded in woodland either side of the Therfield Road on the 15th and at least four still present on the 17th. It has been too cold to have the house windows open this spring, but the night of the 9-10th was warmer and I heard a tawny owl hooting nearby in the early hours.

Spotted Flycatcher in Fox Covert, 17 May

Other Wildlife

The mining bees at Hatchpen Farm continued to interest me. I struggle to identify bees, other than bumble bees, but it became clear that I was dealing with more than one species of mining bee here. I couldn't find any hairy-footed flower bees (see previous posts) when I looked on the 5th, but at least two other types (possibly male and female of the same species) could be seen, along with some nomad bees, again tentatively identified as Gooden's nomad bee. This bee is known to parasitize at least five other species of Andrena mining bees, but I couldn't identify which, if any, of these species were also present. The image below shows the larger of the two 'types' of mining bee that I saw.

Gooden's Nomad Bee, Hatchpen Farm, 5 May

Unidentified Mining Bee, Hatchpen Farm, 5 May

The only butterflies that I saw on the wing in the first half of May were thinly-scattered orange tip, green-veined and small white, peacock and brimstone. Trying to photograph these for my continuing ARPS project proved to be an extremely frustrating and fruitless task! At last, on the 17th, a visit to Church Hill provided me with my first local 'blues' of the year in the shape of three brown argus butterflies. I also saw a red admiral nearby and, a few hours later, I added a single holly blue to my 'seen locally' butterfly list. The brown argus butterflies appeared 15 days later than they did last year. However, with the appearance of rock rose, kidney and horseshoe vetches in the middle of the month, my hopes were raised that other blues might make an appearance in the next couple of weeks - despite the never-ending cool, wet and sometimes windy weather!

Female Brown Argus Butterfly, Church Hill, 17 May

Female Brown Argus Butterfly (a different one), Church Hill, 17 May

Other insect life in mid-May included a big hatch of St Mark's flies on The Heath, a cinnabar moth and a couple of large, unidentified moths that didn't give me a chance to photograph them. White helleborines were emerging slowly from the ground and both red and white campion started to flower.

Male Orange Tip Butterfly, Royston, 8 May

Three St. Mark's Flies, Therfield Heath, 11 May

Finally, after eight weeks of continuously below average temperatures and four weeks of rain, the weather gods finally relented in the last few days of the month and sunshine and temperatures in the 'low twenties' arrived. I was quick to spend time on The Heath looking for butterflies and other insect life and was rewarded when, on Church Hill on the 27th, I found a female Adonis blue. At least five Adonis blues (including a mating pair) were present there the next day and, by the end of the month, 35-40 males were on the wing here, although I was unable to find any elsewhere on The Heath. The fact that this butterfly species had survived the wretched winter and spring gives me confidence that this very attractive addition to our fauna is here to stay. The Adonis blue relies on ants for protection during the caterpillar and pupa stages of its life cycle, and I photographed one emergent male with a black ant apparently attached to its rear end! Increasing numbers of common blue, brown argus and small heath butterflies were also appearing by the end of the month.

Adonis Blue Butterflies Mating, Church Hill, 28 May

Emergent Male Adonis Blue Butterfly with Attendant Black Ant, Church Hill, 31 May

Roosting Adonis Blue (left) and Brown Argus Butterflies, Church Hill, 31 May

Small Heath Butterfly, Church Hill, 31 May

Also on the 31st of May I went looking for small blue butterflies at Hillbrow (Letchworth), finding a single colony of at least eight individuals.

Small Blue Butterfly, Letchworth, 31 May

UK Wildlife Sightings May 2021

 Following several weeks of cold, dry weather, conditions deteriorated further as a storm blew in off the Atlantic on the 3rd, just in time for an RSPB Local Group walk at Broom gravel pits. Gale force winds, driving rain and a temperature of 7C provided almost certainly the worst weather conditions that we have ever experienced on a spring walk. Ten hardy souls still turned up and, in the hour or so that we stayed, all saw greenshank and yellow wagtails at Gypsy Lane East, whilst half the group (we split into two groups to obey Covid-19 restrictions) also saw two wood sandpipers here. During the rest of May temperatures warmed up a little to just very cool as westerly winds predominated, bringing frequent showers and longer periods of rain. This proved a thoroughly depressing spring for birdwatching, with few rarities to chase in the region. Insects (particularly butterflies and moths) were few and far between, but at least the rain benefited their food plants - by mid-month vegetation was lush, green and thriving.

A visit to Amwell Gravel Pits early on the 8th (in pouring rain) produced my first garden warbler of the year, but the black tern that had been seen on the previous evening had gone. However, I didn't have to wait long to see this species as another bird turned up at Dernford Farm Reservoir in Cambridgeshire, which is an 18 minute drive away from my house, on the 10th. This relatively new reservoir is proving to be a magnet for interesting passage migrants and rare gulls and terns, unlike Mardleybury Lake (the only substantial piece of water within four miles of my house), which is often deserted. An interesting swift was also seen at Dernford. Paler than the other swifts, I managed to get a photo as it skimmed the water. Certain features suggested the possibility of pallid swift - an extremely rare UK visitor at this time of year - but the details are not conclusive by any means, and may have been due to a trick of the light. The image is below.

Black Tern, Dernford Farm Reservoir, 10 May

Swift Species, Dernford Farm Reservoir, 10 May

A brief improvement in the weather on the 12th encouraged me to spend a day out, trying to record as many bird species as possible - an event that I have been staging once per year for over 20 years. The only year I missed out on was 2020, due to the Covid-19 outbreak and lockdown. This year I fell well short of my target of 100 species (as I usually do), but I enjoyed getting out and about at Amwell, doing a local walk and then visiting Wells and RSPB Titchwell in the afternoon. I added Temminck's stint and wood sandpiper to my year list at North Point Pools (Wells) and had some fun photographing sanderlings in summer plumage on the beach at Titchwell.

Sanderling Developing Summer Plumage, Titchwell Beach, 12 May

I drove down to the New Forest on the 16th, as part of an unofficial RSPB Local Group visit (we were booked to travel there on this day by coach, before Covid-19 struck). The weather on the way down was appalling, with torrential rain, but one other brave member (Peter Chapman) also made the journey and, as the weather improved to just (occasional) sunshine and showers, we waded through the rivers and streams that had been left by the rain to record 50 bird species, including curlew, 10+ crossbills, redstarts, a fine variety of warblers (including Dartford warbler) and a confiding woodlark. We might normally expect to see dragonflies in the marshy areas of the forest, but the weather had put paid to that.

Butterfly numbers were low everywhere due to the poor spring weather, but the appearance of local brown argus butterflies near my home encouraged me to visit Bison Hill, near Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire, on the 18th, to look for species that are active in the spring. I was lucky to find at least a dozen Duke of Burgundy butterflies, most in good condition, as well as green hairstreak, grizzled and dingy skippers, a few more brown argus and (a bit of a surprise) a painted lady. All these butterflies fly close to the ground and are not easy to photograph: a couple of my better efforts are shown below.

Duke of Burgundy, Bison Hill, 18 May

Grizzled Skipper, Bison Hill, 18 May

I undertook another of my annual trips, this time to the Peak District, on the 19th. The plan was to do a shorter walk up to and along Derwent Edge from Cutthroat Bridge, adding tree pipit, pied flycatcher and red grouse to my year list and taking some nice photos of the latter before moving on to Lathkill Dale to see and photograph dippers. Well, I carried out the plan except that the birds weren't there! Asked beforehand what would be the most likely bird to 'dip' on I would have said pied flycatcher, yet that was the only bird of the four that I saw! I've been doing this trip at roughly this time of year for at least 25 years and never dipped on red grouse before: I heard birds on a couple of occasions but that was it! Tree pipit is rapidly becoming a bogey bird for me this year. It also appears to be declining in this region: I used to regularly record three to four singing birds in the Strines/Cutthroat Bridge area on my visits in the past. Wood warblers have also been absent for a few years now. However, ring ouzels were seen and heard in several places - I must have recorded at least seven. Insect activity was, unsurprisingly, rather low although I did see a few moths, a green tiger beetle and a green hairstreak butterfly which was perched in heather on the Derwent Edge ridge. Lapwings and curlews were nesting close to the path as I descended towards Strines Farm from Derwent Edge. Lapwings appear to have two strategies to keep me away from their nests: either to mob and scold me in flight or to land close to me and then walk away from the presumed nest site. Both were used as I walked along the path.

Green Hairstreak Butterfly, Derwent Edge, 19 May

Lapwing in Flight, Strines, 19 May

With the weather at last improving in the final week of May I visited Rutland Water (Lyndon reserve) on the 25th to see the ospreys there. The pair had two young on the nest, although these were still too small to see.

Male (in Flight) and Female Osprey Pair, Rutland Water, 25 May

On the 27th I made my first visit of the year to the excellent RSPB reserve at Frampton Marsh, near Boston in Lincolnshire. I was looking to add curlew sandpiper and little stint to my UK year list, but apparently both were feeding out on The Wash, having only been seen on the reserve around high tide. Another bird was, however, added to my year list: rather embarrassingly, I saw my first short-eared owl of the year there, having missed my 'local' SEOs on several occasions. However, this was not the highlight of my visit. A single black-necked grebe had been reported on the reserve for a few days beforehand, but when I got to the area of the reserve where it had been seen I found three grebes, including a pair which were displaying not far from the path and subsequently were seen mating! I was close enough to get some decent photos of these birds in their spectacular summer plumage - what a privilege, and totally unexpected. I was also very lucky, because on the following and subsequent days only the (original?) single grebe was reported. Before I left I was also able to get some decent photos of a very showy sedge warbler.

Black-necked Grebe, RSPB Frampton Marsh, 27 May

Displaying Black-necked Grebes, RSPB Frampton Marsh, 27 May

Sedge Warbler, RSPB Frampton Marsh, 27 May