In search of Birds, Odonata, Lepidoptera & Orchids

June saw the weather improve and start to make thing seem more like it was summer at last.  What does seem concerning is the lack of insects generally, it seems the wet winter and spring has had a detrimental effect on the early emerging species.  Nonetheless Jackie and myself haven't done too badly connecting with this season's butterflies and dragonflies.

First we will start with the birds we managed 92 species in June and added 7 species to the year list though one of them doesn't officially count as it isn't accepted as a sustainable introduced population yet, but were still very nice to see, that being Great Bustard.

Our first visit was local on the 2nd out to Arne which turn out to be a pretty quiet day best was a view of an Osprey over Shipstal.

Osprey over Shipstal Beach © Nick Hull

Also carried out a reptile survey on the 3rd though it started cool then it turned very hot by the time we finished, we had a little luck with finding one or two Smooth Snake, Common Lizard and Sand Lizard. After this we spent time trying to find interesting inverts for the Spring Watch film crew.

Common Lizard - Arne © Nick Hull

Smooth Snake - Arne © Nick Hull (taken under license)

A walk with friends in Wareham Forest on the 4th we added a Common Crossbill which was chipping merrily as it flew over us. It was here that we found our first Bee Orchids of the year which are always nice to see.  

Bee Orchids - Wareham Forest © Nick Hull

Next day (5th) we headed up onto the northern chalk to Martin Down, again with friends, the morning was a little clouded and cool so not brilliant for butterflies.  We headed out and walking down to the Burnt-tip Orchids area we were seeing lots of Skylark, a few Corn Bunting and Yellowhammer and a handful of butterflies.  Small Blue was the first then Common Blue, Meadow Brown and Small Heath. We had passed the rifle butts and possibly halfway to the orchid location when Jackie said "there's a Marsh Fritillary" 

Marsh Fritillary - Martin Down © Nick Hull

This was a butterfly we missed last year so we was very pleased to have found one and it was only another hundred metres to the orchids.  Just a small stand and we were a bit late for the best show but one or two were still looking ok. We also saw Common Spotted and Fragrant Orchids.

Burnt Orchid - Martin Down © Nick Hull

On the return walk to the car park we added a few other butterflies such as Dingy and Large Skipper, Small and Common Blue, Meadow Brown and Small Heath.  We also had good views of a Corn Bunting singing his dangling keys song.

Corn Bunting - Martin Down © Nick Hull

Jackie and I stayed on having a picnic lunch and visited Kitts Grave area afterwards the sun came out and the warmth brought all the butterflies out.  We added Brown Argus, Green Hairstreak, Brimstone, Small Copper, Green-veined, Small and Large White and added a couple of day flying moths Mother Shipton and Five-spot Burnet.

On the 6th I was out again with Terry searching for wildlife locations for the tv camera crews as they thought they would do something on dragonflies and damselflies.  We found quite a few but they didn't make the cut like so much but it doesn't take away the fact we had a great day finding odonata and getting a few shots for ourselves.

Four-spotted-Chaser_L.q.praenubila - Arne © Nick Hull

Small Red Damselfly - Arne © Nick Hull

On the 10th we headed up on to Salisbury Plain along with a few friends who wanted to see the Great Bustards which have been reintroduced and seem to be doing very well.  We were informed that there were nine females on nests this year.  Whilst we were there we also saw Grey and Red-legged Partridge, Stone Curlew and several Red Kite.

Female Great Bustard © Nick Hull

Male Great Bustard © Nick Hull

After visiting the plain we headed over to Bentley Wood where we had lunch and a walk for butterflies.  Here we added our first Grizzled Skipper of the year and a varient of Five-spot Burnet (Z-trifolii-palustrella) which was an interesting find.  We ended our day here with a pair of Spotted Flycatcher and singing Firecrest in the car park.

Variant of Five-spot Burnet - Bentley Wood © Nick Hull

Grizzled Skipper -Bentley Wood © Nick Hull

On the 16th we did our Osprey watch and had a excellent display from a pair of Hobby feeding over the fields which I have to say was a little distracting from the job we were doing.

Hobby - Careys Secret Garden - © Nick Hull

On the 17th we were over to Durlston Country Park where we had a very nice walk but it was fairly quiet bird wise.  Even the butterflies were thin on the ground but we did add Lulworth Skipper to our year list, found some more Bee Orchids along with many Common Spotted Orchid and Pyramidal Orchid. I managed some nice shots of the Fulmar cruising along the cliffs at eye level.

Lulworth Skipper _ Durlston CP © Nick Hull

Pyramidal Orchid - Durlston CP © Nick Hull

Northern Fulmar - Durlston CP © Nick Hull

After getting home I was checking out the bee hotels which I found to be pretty well full and spotted a small bee on the post so quickly took a couple of shots and from these photos I was able to identify it as Hylaeus communis_(Common Yellow-face Bee) a new species for the garden.  Around ten minutes later I saw a wasp with a long ovipositor fly by me and land on the front of the bee hotel.  I took a series of shots and again checking the reference to confirm my thoughts it turn out to be Gasteruption jaculator a parasitic wasp species. Amazingly the ovipositor is more or less the length of its body. In fact it was a species that I've wanted to see for a very long time and to get it in the garden was perfect.

Common Yellow-face Bee - Home Garden ©Nick Hull

Gasteruption jaculator flying in to land on the bee hotel © Nick Hull

Gasteruption jaculator on Bee Hotel © Nick Hull

On the 18th Jackie had arranged for us to pickup friends to go and see the Roseate Tern pair that were nesting at Normandy Lagoon near Lymington.  So we decided on a little earlier start than usual to get there before there were to many people walking the coastal path.  We made good time and found a parking spot and headed out along the coastal path to where we could see three birders with scopes.  As we joined them and set up they kindly directed us to the location of the nest.  The sitting bird was somewhat concealed by vegetation but we patiently waited until we picked up a adult Roseate flying in across the lagoon towards the nest site and we watched a change-over at the nest and the sitting bird leave and fly out towards the Solent.  We stayed and watched another change over sometime later and this time the bird that was relieved flew around the lagoon and dropped into the water and had a bath giving good scope views.

Roseate Tern landing at the nest Normandy Lagoon © Nick Hull

Roseate Tern following a Common Tern out to the Solent © Nick Hull

Whilst we were there we noticed that every now and again the odd Little Tern would fly in and then leave again and I managed to get a few shots of one and caught it in a very odd position.

Little Tern aerobics Normandy Lagoon © Nick Hull

Little Tern - Normandy Lagoon © Nick Hull

I also managed to catch a few of the other species that were around the lagoon such as this Redshank who lived up to its name of warden of the marsh giving its alarm call not long after we arrived.

Common Redshank - Normandy Lagoon © Nick Hull

This pair of Avocet had a couple of growing chicks just out of view and deemed this Little Egret was getting to close and went into attack mode.

Pair Avocet chasing off Little Egret © Nick Hull

This next shot I quite like it was as the Avocet was coming back after seeing off the Little Egret calling as though it was pleased with the job he/she had done.

Avocet - Normandy Lagoon © Nick Hull

On the 26th and the 28th I was out doing some surveying for rare inverts Stag Beetles. We found none of the latter but came across some interesting species some being recordable, such as the Mottle Bee-fly. 

Mottled Bee-fly Purbeck Heathland © Nick Hull

Terry, who I do many of my surveys with, found this little pot which is the cell made by the Heath Potter Wasp which places a caterpillar inside and lays an egg and the developing larvae will eat the caterpillar and then unseal the pot and away to start the process again. This pot is still sealed so the wasp larvae hasn't left yet.

Heath Potter Wasp Pot Purbeck Heathland © Nick Hull

We also came across the very pink nymph grasshopper which we think will be a Field Grasshopper when grows up.

Pink nymph Field Grasshopper © Nick Hull

Debbie one of the other surveyors found this caterpillar I have to admit I didn't know what species it would be but Terry had seen one before and it turns out to be the caterpillar of the Red Sword-grass moth.

Red Sword-grass Caterpillar © Nick Hull

One of the last finds was this white crab flower spider Misumena vatia we were hoping to find the pink variant or even a white and pink striped but we had to make do with a very nice white individual on a foxglove. 

Misumena vatia - Crab Flower Spider © Nick Hull

This bring the summary of June nature watching to and end roll-on July..