Small Marbled and Four Rosys

Small Marbled - I've seen plenty of these in France but this is the first one I've ever trapped. It's a truly tiny species which could easily be over-looked as a 'cochylis', but it's an immigrant 'macro' and a pretty rare one at that. The only other immigrant species last night were three or four Silver Y and one or two Rusty Dot Pearl.

 

I had to rub my bleary eyes first thing this morning when my first scan of Bull Hill, from Shelly Beach, revealed four Roseate Terns sat together in a tight bunch. Once I'd convinced myself they simply couldn't be anything else I texted the news out. I then enjoyed prolonged views of them fishing together in the river, and later they settled at Dawlish Warren, as predicted. Here they allowed Lee to get a further three ring reads (one bird was un-ringed). Remarkably all four were different to yesterday's bird. Perhaps we're seeing a return to this species being regular on the Exe again. I do hope so!

Also counted this morning were 120+ Sandwich Tern and at least 4 Common Tern. I'm sure there were more than six Mediterranean Gulls out there but no juveniles which is a bit odd.

The only other birds of note today were 3 Grey Herons 'in-off' from Maer Rocks early this morning (with a fourth bird on the rocks) and a Peregrine over Shelly Beach.

Small Marbled

This is the first White-line Dart that I've ever trapped. I sent this photo to Barry Henwood, just to confirm it's not the very similar Coast Dart, which apparently doesn't occur in Devon.

Double-striped Pug - this and the following species are all common moths but I'm in the process of updating my moths pages (see menu bar above).

Rustic

Willow Beauty

Snout

Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing (male) - two females were also trapped last night, along with my first Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing of the year.

Magpie

Dingy Footman

Dot Moth

A big thank you to Lee for letting me use these beautiful photos. Wish I had half his photography skills!