July Herald

Sunday July 10 

June and July is when birders become more involved with Dragonflies and Butterflies, spring migration is over, Autumn's yet to begin. Except that non breeding and unsuccessful waders begin their journey back south. A few Wood Sandpipers and Spotted Redshanks in Norfolk heralds the arrival. Snettisham has a White-rumped Sandpiper, Cley a Night Heron seen flying into and out of Nortjh Foreland Wood at dusk. The latter also holds Spoonbills and Great White Egret as well as the established Grey Heronry.

We have been trying out more pheromone lures in the garden for my favourite Clearwings. One Lunar Hornet Clearwing, a monster, looking just like a wasp.

 


Two Yellow-legged Clearwings

 



Yesterday, there was a BC organised Cley moth-ing session. Ten members of our moth group were joined by about ten others.Ian Robinson, BC moth officer ran the event, with a fair amount of tactful help from Greg - who is much more familiar with the moths found here. He hadn't got a scribe to take down all the moths seen, my usual job as I can do that sitting down, so I did so. It does mean that I don't get to see all the moths, but Pam, and Sue, make sure that I see the ones I want to see. 

It was a good catch with some interesting micros, Marcus and Andy were the identifiers of that group. Marcus brought in an Aphonia zelleri from his garden, new for me. 

I was ready for some sustenance after that, we sat outside chatting whilst Pam and I shared a cheese toastie, my first meal of the day. We were still all looking out for the Bittern which flies around the marsh. It did show, but not for us, it was on the west side viewable from the Centre cafe.Earlier in the week, we saw a Honey Buzzard from the Swanton Novers raptor watchpoint.

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