Skywatching and Even More Moffs

Having spent August on days, I took the opportunity of the sunny weather [well, when it was sunny.. grr] to sit outside with my lunch. Work is adjacent to a minor flyway and a half-decent thermalling area, and so weather permitting I get half an hour a day to see what flies over. I can see a fair amount from inside, but sitting outside gives anything passing more time in-view, and less piss-taking at me staring at distant birds from co-workers...


Pre-amble aside.. In three weeks I saw exactly three raptors. [[Not exactly Batumi..!]] Only one was a Buzzard - on the 26th - which is a very good ratio for the site {or anywhere else around here}. One was a spp. - on the 13th, didn't look very Buzzardy, but the blimmin' thing went zooming through and didn't stop to soar - and one, on the 11th, which did stop to soar and showed quite nicely for a couple of minutes.
Also three Racing Pigeons. Wow.
And most notably, 5 Swift - which were feeding at treetop height and moved East - on the 26th. No white bits visible on the rump area of any of them though they were quite glidey. Light not super-helpful for fine plumage variations and I was most vexed by the whole 'no cameras on site or you're sacked' rule we have, I must say. Even though they were 99.99% likely to be Common; ie. in August [if it had been October I'd've been gnawing my arm in frustration...!] and to be fair, looked dark, slim, and pointy. Another interesting thing being this was the largest group of Swifts I'd seen at work all year.


Ok, enough of that, let's see some more Moffs!

Portland Ribbon Wave

[for the second year]

Rosy Footman

Silver Y Moth

This is showing so well because it is, alas, dead. [Living ones will not let you get this close]. I don't know what happened to it, normally a moth will last days before dehydrating [if I can't let it out], this one just appeared one morning as is. Maybe a spider got it but it escaped the web before succumbing?

Single-dotted Wave

Platytes alpinella

Agriphila sp.

[tristella / selasella]

Exapate congelatella??

[a lot early, but nothing else like it in my book..??]

Crambid sp., maybe lathoniellus?

Another crambid

Right, enough of this.

Be Seeing You...






[[It may be needed to restate that The Rule is that nothing is to be 'claimed' that is rarer than a Yellow-brow for land and a Long-tail** for seawatching. With a current average of 0-1 sightings a year, this one therefore cannot be named. ]]
[[**Used to be Sabine's Gull, but they're now rarer than LTS....]]