Local Wildlife Sightings September 2022

  Apologies for the very sporadic nature of my sightings: this has been due to a combination of circumstances - hopefully, things will be back to normal by October. 

We finally had an 'unsettled' period of weather in the first ten days of September, with more rain (30mm) falling than in the whole of July and August combined. The weather turned much cooler too, although it was still pleasantly warm during this early period. Butterfly numbers inevitably dropped off, although Adonis blues were still present in decent numbers at both ends of The Heath during the first half of the month. Perhaps the commonest butterfly during this period was the speckled wood, which always seems to be far more abundant in our area during the early autumn than it is in the spring. Small heath butterflies were also quite common.

I turned my attention more towards grasshoppers, bush crickets, bugs and spiders later in the month. Three bush crickets (long winged conehead, Roesel's bush cricket and dark bush cricket) were seen on the field adjoining my estate and a Roesel's bush cricket was also photographed on Church Hill.

Female Roesel's Bush-cricket, Therfield Heath, 6 September

Bird sightings picked up noticeably during the second week as migrants started to pass through our area on southbound migration in good numbers. Although I missed out (again) on a pied flycatcher seen nearby (David Hatton) as well as redstarts, I did see (and photograph!) the notoriously skulking lesser whitethroat on the 12th, when I also saw willow warbler, blackcaps and around 25 chiffchaffs on a walk up the Icknield Way and on to The Heath.

A 'bright' Chiffchaff (I think!), Royston, 12 September

Lesser Whitethroat, Royston, 12 September

Male Blackcap, Royston, 12 September

Numbers of ivy bees continued to increase towards the end of the month - thank goodness they don't sting! They have a peculiar habit of resting on leaves close to ivy plants and appearing to wipe their bodies against the leaves - are they cleaning themselves of excess pollen?

Two Ivy Bees, Royston, 29 September

After a holiday break (I will write a separate post about this) I returned to find that most of the passage migrant birds had moved on, although a few chiffchaffs remained to the end of the month. Winter visitors, in the form of lapwings, common and black-headed gulls, were back in the area, but generally things were pretty quiet.