Sunday 31 August 2014

Flippin' cheek!

 
While sat at the kitchen window this afternoon, Sarah saw movement at the bird feeder and drew my attention to this cheeky little sod. It had struggled up through the hedge and managed to heave itself onto the feeder with the help of the recently grown shoots of the Forsythia hedge!
 
 

 
On Friday Matthew and I had a day trip, to visit the bird reserve at Marquenterre. The entry fee, at 10.90 Euros for me and 7.90 for Matt was a bit eye-watering, as also was the wind. The lady at the ticket window asked where we were from (my French must have fooled her completely!!) and when I responded "England" she rooted around and gave me a brochure - in French!!
 
 
Birds were hard to find, tho' there was just one White Stork to admire
 
 
but it didn't stay long

 
There were Libellules by the hundred, all busy in flight and therefore no pictures from my camera apart from this one, and no, I haven't worked out what it is yet

 
Matt was fascinated by this Shield Bug of some sort, at about 1.5cm long relatively large

 
The wind was keeping birds heads down, as you can see from this one

 
and the swell was bouncing this Little Grebe youngster around rather a lot

 
By my reckoning there were a couple of hundred Spoonbill present, all at the far end of the long pool, except for this obliging character

 
Back home yesterday morning in the moth trap were two Copper Underwings, not a common species for my garden, and therefore worth a photo after the mention in my previous blog

 
A bit later I was clearing some gone - to - seed Spinach from the veg patch, and discovered this caterpillar, which my copy of Chinery shows to be a Dot Moth

 
but this one among the tomatoes in the greenhouse has me beaten, unless it's a very well marked Small White butterfly caterpillar, so any help with this will be welcome


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