Lowestoft Life - 22nd October 2024

A nice little selection in my south Lowestoft garden last night (21st) with ten moths of eight species and a further 17 from the trusty Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM if you see it abbreviated anywhere!). They included my first two Musotima nitidalis, both Grey Pine and Common Marbled Carpet, Mallow and Green Brindled Crescent amongst others.

Marbled Fern - Musotima nitidalis

Some of my Light Brown Apple Moths (LBAMs) are a bit odd

Mallow

Common Marbled Carpet

Grey Pine Carpet 

Oh and Blair's Shoulder Knot from the day before

Green Brindled Crescent

Double Striped Pug

Bordered Chestnut

Black Rustic

With the sun shining I dragged myself out for a walk around Fisher Row and Oulton Marshes this morning.  I was a little chilly at first but was pleasantly warm in the sunshine and I had it in my mind to find a Yellow-browed or Pallas’s Warbler.  As it was I never even heard a Chiffchaff but there were a couple of noisy active Tit flocks with particularly obliging Long-tails amongst them.  I heard Treecreeper and Goldcrest and there were a few Song Thrushes around the Ivy clumps.

Long-tailed Tit

The ’winking’ of Pinkfeet drew my eyes up and I could see about 300 way off towards Fritton Lake and then about the same number again arrived from the east. What a sight and sound so close to home.  Antony rang at the same time to say that about 500 had just gone over his house and were heading south so there were over 1000 birds in the area today!

Pinkfeet 

The marshes were green but dry with just a few Herring Gulls and Rooks and not even one Chinese Water Deer anywhere. Down at Oulton Dyke I could hear Reed Buntings in the phragmites and a pair of Stonechats were flycatching avidly. Several Buzzards and a single female Marsh Harrier were up and about and a pair of Kestrels were vocally patrolling the marsh.

Stonechat

Grey Heron

Common Buzzard

Common Buzzard

Kestrel

I ambled along the levee with Common Darters and a Migrant Hawker basking in the Brambles before I dropped down onto the cut through path. It was even warmer down here and it was prime leaf mining territory too and I found at least 19 species within leaf mines, blotches, folds and seedheads as well as a Narycia duplicella bagworm going about its lichen grazing on a fencepost and several flitting Nettle Taps.

Phyllonorycter rajella on Alder

Phyllonorycter viminiella on Osier type

Phyllonorycter devoniella  on Hazel

There were many more Common Darters and I counted 11 Willow Emeralds too some of which had taken on a purple sheen in old age. A single Red Admiral was on the Ivy with the usual Hoverflies for this time of year and there were plenty of Common Wasps and some hungry Hornets but not one Ivy Bee.

Common Darter

Willow Emerald

Willow Emerald

Eristalis pertinax

Eristalis pertinax

Helophilus pertinax

Mellinus arvensis - possibly!

I could smell dog Fox the whole way round and a Muntjac flashed her tail and crashed through the Brambles while a large dark lump in the ditch along side me suddenly loudly splashed and dove underneath – An Otter! I waited but the view was obscured and I did not resurface anywhere I could see.

Woody Nightshade

Bramble

Rosehip

Hemp Agrimony

Robin's Pin Cushion

I ambled back, warmed by the autumnal sunshine pleased with my efforts.  On the way home I drove over Mutford Lock and glanced at the pontoon as I usually do (there were Turnstones there yesterday) and spied what I was sure was a Tern sat amongst the Black-headed Gulls so a quick backtrack and a I walked over the road to check it out.  I was very pleased to discover a 1^st-winter Common Tern sat there looking quite content on its dinky little short legs. A most pleasing end to proceedings!

Common Tern

 Common Tern

Lowestoft Life - 10th - 18th October 2024

With the aurora looking set to be amazing in the night of the 10^th, we poodled out after dark and found a grand view to the west of Haddiscoe.  The rain had stopped and the clouds were breaking and I had hopes but as usual for me, nothing was happening but I stood there in the dark, listening to the sounds of distant Tawny Owls and Song Thrushes and even a Moorhen calling overhead but no glorious glowing.

A Chinese Water Deer starting barking from the field closest to me.  A terrifying screaming that is genuinely heart stopping when it suddenly starts up!  I gave up too early once again and headed for home frustrated by the messages from on my doorstep about ‘a lovely glow’.  There was a hint of colour but nothing special.

Got home, pulled up, got out and there was a huge block of red hanging in the sky back towards Carlton! Arrrggghhh! Back in the car and down to Carlton which was heaving and in a fit of peak (again) I left and came hoe and went to bed and missed the main show in the wee small hours.  Never mind.  At least I saw the colour with my naked eye and unfortunately, I think there will be other chances down south in the coming years.

More garden time on the 13^th produced a few Hoverflies with Eristalis tenax, Eupeodes corollae and Episyrphus balteatus and a single Red Admiral.  It was unseasonably warm and the following afternoon Antony and I headed to Gisleham in the afternoon for a bit of impromptu leaf mine hunting around the church and its lanes and we found 32 species of moth mine wiggling, blotching and folding there way through various leaves. 

Stigmella tityrella  on Beech

There were Hoverflies here too on to the still flowering Ivy with Xylota segnis being the pick of the bunch.  The were some late Ivy Bees and lots of Common Wasps as well as a few Bumblebees and we found a couple of smart Hawthorn and a single Green Shieldbug. A Speckled Wood was the only Butterfly and it was good to find a Zig-Zig Elm Sawfly.  There were even some birds with Yellowhammer and Skylark over and Goldcrests in the Yews.

 Zig-Zig Elm Sawfly

 Grey Shoulder Knot

 Tawny Speckled Pug cat on Yarrow

The night of the 14^th saw a good chance to see Comet A3 Tsuchinshan Atlas and amazingly it was visible blazing across the low western sky from my garden with huge tail attached to a twinkling ball of light 44 million miles away.  With another 80,000 years to wait for its next visit it was good to take the opportunity!

The following night was warm but the cloud was low and there was no chance of comet watching but it did mean that there was a constant stream of Redwings invisibly heading south.  It also should have mean some good mothing but it was very poor with juts four species although one was a smart Beaded Chestnut.

Beaded Chestnut

Beaded Chestnut

The next morning I was enthusiastically down at Pakefield Beach in the hope of seeing some evidence of last night’s movement but other than a few ticking Robins and a couple of Song Thrush, it was very quiet and the only birds moving overhead were the odd Meadow Pipit, Skylark and a single Rock Pipit.

The Cetti’s Warbler was surprisingly still half singing in the base of the Elms below me and a Chiffchaff was calling in there too.  It was windy with an easterly into my face and the sea was rough but I stuck it out for 45 minutes and counted 202 Dark-bellied Brent Geese, five Shelduck, a few dabblers and four Grey Heron low and south along with a flock of Dunlin and three Curlew while a Sooty Shearwater swung north way off shore.  There were no Gannets.

From here I checked Kirkley Cemetery in the hope of finding and eastern waif but alas it was deathly with almost no birds whatsoever – not even a Blackbird!  I amused myself with some leaf mining (as you do) and had a close encounter with a pair of distracted Foxes whose game of chase took them straight at me without realising.  The dog had an amazingly bushy tail.

The local Buzzards paid a couple of low visits over the garden and the Herring Gulls alerted me as usual but equally they are never fussed by their Larid chaperones. A Chiffchaff called from the Birch and a few Meadow Pipits bumbled over.

Buzzard

Another attempt at the Comet at Carlton Marshes after dark did give a view but it was poor when compared Monday but the Moon was equally distracting behind us creating amazing moonlight shadows. 

Comet A3 Tsuchinshan Atlas

The trap went on again that night and was slightly more productive with eight species with a pale flavascens Sallow, three inky Black Rustics, Gem, three Rusty Dot Pearls, a Delicate, Caloptilia rufipennella, 21 LBAMs, two Large Yellow Underwing and a single Diamond-back.  It was so warm that both the Toads and Frogs were out actively feeding.

flavascens Sallow

Caloptilia rufipennella (AW)

Gem

Rusty Dot Pearl

More garden time and walk to the shops and even that was worth the leg work with a front garden nearby have a wondrous display of Fly Agarics looking slightly incongruous in the neat grass!

Fly Agarics

Fly Agaric

This morning we pottered down to Southwold for a wander round the town post-tourist season. It was so quiet with no background noise at all and even in town you could hear Robins and Wrens in the courtyards and gardens and Skylarks and both Pied and Grey Wagtails flying over in the cloudless blue. A search in the Elms and Sycamores along Gardner Road gave me a Goldcrest and a couple of Tits but no sprites or funny Robins but I am trying!

Burdock - squeeze the heads & if hard then the grub of the
moth Metznaria lappella will be inside

 

Back home for some more selective grass cutting by hand and then out to Metzenaria lappellaBeach simply because I have to keep believing that there is something out there for me to find!  Strangely enough I found nowt bar a single Med Gull and flock of House Sparrows. 

'My' Elm copse on the beach - one Robin

Herring Gull 

Black-headed Gull 

House Sparrow

The Ivy at one spot was still flowering strongly and was humming with Wasps, Ivy Bees and Hoverflies.  It was still so warm at nearly 20c so I may try the moth trap again tonight.

Eristalis pertinax

Calliphora vicina

Ivy Bee

Common Wasp

Helophilus pendulus

Araneus diadematus

Araneus diadematus

Ivy almost at the berry stage

Fuchsia