Mad March Hares - March 2010

In late March 2010, Chris and I took a trip up to the north east to see my parents. On the way back we called in to see Lincoln Cathedral and then stayed for a few days with friends in Norfolk. One of the highlights of the Norfolk visit was photographing hares as they did their amazing chases and boxing matches in the fields near Strumpshaw RSPB reserve.



The mornings started early to get the car/hide into position before the hares started to perform.



Soon the chase was on.



The action was quite confusing at times.



At other times it was really spectacular. All in all a fantastic few hours of nature in action, all for free.

How time flies.

Just realised that it has been over a year since I posted anything on here. That's not to say I've had nothing to write about, just that it has been so full of things to get engrossed in that actually writing them up has been the last thing on my mind. Chris and I started a veg plot in April 2010 and it has been very successful. It is on the one acre plot of some people in the next village who wanted to do something with their grassy plot and responded to a message I put in the Parish News asking for people interested in allotments to get in touch.

A quiet autumn

October and November were relatively quiet in terms of amazing rarities. I did manage a visit back to the north east to see a new bird for Britain. This major find was so close to being missed, as someone had taken a photograph of it and another bird thinking they were two of the same species. Fortunately he posted his photographs on a local bird forum and someone who was familiar with the species suddenly had a heart stopping moment as he realised that the bird was not a Yellow-browed Warbler as stated but an Eastern Crowned Warbler, new for Britain. The resultant rush to South Shields next day made the national news.

I couldn't help thinking as I stood watching the bird that the last new birds I'd seen in South Shields were Ross's and Ivory Gull both together at the site in 1970. In those days, both gulls were the stuff of legend for most birders and they had provoked a somewhat similar mass pilgrimage.

The other amazing bird of the autumn was a Brown Shrike that turned up a stone's throw from Heathrow airport and is still there in December, though its prospects in this recent cold spell look bleak.

October mothing was quite eventful, Durlston in Dorset provided much interest in the form of both Oak Rustic and Sombre Brocade. These two species have recently colonised the Holm Oak trees that abound along the cliffs there. The former has successfully spread to several neighbouring sites and it is supposed that Sombre Brocade will show similar dispersive behaviour over the next few years.

December has been quiet on most fronts, apart from the journey to London a friend and I made last week to help rescue a beetle :-) The beetle in question is only known from one brownfield site in the docklands area of London. The area is soon to be redeveloped so a last trawl of the habitat was made to see if any more beetles could be found and translocated to a nearby suitable habitat that was safe for them. We found four beetles and they joined the sixty plus that had already been successfully moved. I managed to get some nice photographs of the beetle in question and one of these made it onto the Guardian website. In typical fashion, the "Grauniad" spelled my name incorrectly but hey ho :-)

Scilly Break

Chris and I enjoyed two weeks on the Isles of Scilly in September. Highlights for me were finding a Smooth Stick Insect and photographing Red barbed Ant.














Pretty weird highlights you may think but you just gotta think "different strokes for different folks". We got to do a lot of walking and the weather was great. I wouldn't call a holiday on the Isles of Scilly relaxing, but it does recharge the spiritual batteries. An island local summed it up perfectly when he said nobody comes to the Isles of Scilly twice, they either come once and just don't get it or they come back again and again. I definitely put myself in the latter category and would recommend it as a holiday destination to anyone.























Because of the blocking high that sat over the uk throughout our stay, the winds were largely non existent, so new birds were hard to come by. I did see and photograph some nice birds, however, with Water Rail being one of the most confiding I have ever seen. Tresco Abbey Gardens provided a wonderful diversion from birds, and on a trip out to see the Bishop Rock Lighthouse up close and personal, our boat crossed paths with a very obliging school of Common Dolphin.

Putting the House in order

August was a bit of a wash out weatherwise but it did allow us to concentrate on the mundane stuff like getting quotes for double glazing and a new boiler. We also sourced a new bed, the thinking being that now we are retired we need all the energy we can get from a good night's sleep to allow us to function at this hectic pace :-)

I managed to squeeze in a few moth and photography forays, highlight being Dusky Scalloped Oak in Dorset. Another real bonus was getting to see and photograph a White Prominent larva. I also started to use my 65mm MP E Macro lens a bit more. It will magnify to five times life size so anything that is too small for my aged eyes to make out is fair game. The problem lies in finding the subject matter in the first place!

I have recently had the good fortune to be pointed at several really interesting weevils (bet you never dreamed anyone would write that in a sentence)and have managed to take photographs of them that are satisfying. None of my Flickr photographs are in Explore yet but I get 150 hits a day on my photostream so someone must be enjoying them. www.flickr.com/photos/oldbilluk if you are interested.