Spring Plods On

As I type, a wet and blustery afternoon is going on outside. In here it is warm and dry, but I have a blank page to fill. It is ten days since the last NQS post, a much longer gap than usual, and I am struggling to find something to blame for this slackness. However, instead of lame excuses, have some captioned photos...

On April 3rd I revisited the 'Wild Daffodil' meadow, noting also these Cuckoo Flowers, or Lady's Smock, in fresh bloom. Lovely.

One of several close-ups I took of the putative Wild Daffs I discovered recently. Comparing these with descriptions and online photos of [presumably] genuine Wild Daffodils, I cannot fault them. However, a friend sent me a photo of the relevant page in a handbook of Dorset flora, and the distribution map does not show Narcissus pseudonarcissus occurring in the spot where these plants live. Whatever, they are quite a sight, and wild enough for me. And anyway, perhaps they've been overlooked previously?

Big drifts of beautiful Primroses in the same meadow as above.

En route to the Wild Daff meadow I spied some more good candidates approximately two fields to the south, on a slope of private land across the river. Not easy to make out in the photo, but all those clumps of creamy dots in the lower half of the photo look very convincing through binoculars.

Returning home that same afternoon, almost at dusk, I disturbed this Tawny Owl in a small copse. A bit grainy, but I am pretty amazed the camera managed anything at all in the near darkness. I almost never see Tawny Owls.

Two Wheatears (of four seen) during an early-morning walk from West Bay to Eype on April 8th. This photo was taken at 07:20. The 'horizon' is actually the cliff edge. Beyond that, the English Channel. Just 30 seconds later, both birds were up and away, heading inland. A few minutes either way, and I would never have seen them.

Later that day, our second garden Red Kite of the year is escorted off the premises by the local gulls.

Caught overnight April 9th/10th, I cannot resist including another Brindled Beauty photo on this blog. A superb moth.

Caught the same night, this is Dark Sword-grass. A genuine immigrant, and seemingly part of a notable influx into southern counties lately. One previous garden record, last September.

The Herald, a genuinely stunning moth. As someone on Twitter observed, it has a 'touch of fire'. A great description. I find it quite easy to visualize this moth in 3D, and that orange mottling as a small but raging inferno, as seen through a partially-consumed flammable screen. Or is it just me?! Anyway, this species overwinters as an adult, hibernating in old WWII bunkers, smugglers' caves and suchlike. What a moth!

The newly-published Bridport Area Bird Report for 2022, featuring West Bay's popular Barred Warbler on the front cover, is now available to download as a pdf, accessible HERE.

I tried seawatching again this morning...

That sentence could legitimately start a huge number of blog posts. Too many, probably. So far in 2023 I have yet to coincide a seawatch with anything spectacular in the way of bird movement, but there is quite often something of note. This morning it was the year's first Common Tern. Three quarters of an hour for one Common Tern, three Sandwich Terns and 12 Gannets is dedication to the cause, but hardly thrilling. Still, on Monday morning a Velvet Scoter flew east at 07:00 - close enough to see that it was a female - and that was mildly thrilling. Not a species you can quite guarantee each year, so a pleasing addition to the PWC2023 list. Talking of which, I have just updated my patch tallies (click on the PWC2023 tab to view) which now stand at 60 species (65 points) for Bridport North, and 86 species (107 points) for West Bay & Eype.

I know that migration is happening, because I see reports of it all over Twitter. Species like Redstart, Pied Flycatcher, Yellow Wagtail, Sedge Warbler etc are turning up at many inland spots, but - assuming weather conditions allow - I suspect that many go straight over the coast without stopping. The two Wheatears pictured above are probably typical - a brief pause, then away. Springtime birding on the West Dorset coast is rarely as migrant-rich as I think it ought to be, or as most birders who don't live here probably imagine. I have yet to see or hear even Willow Warbler locally, for example. Still, the potential for being shocked by a Hoopoe is no doubt much greater than lots of places, and the scenery is pretty decent...