St Andrews Park

Last night I took my moth trap to the pond area to see what I could catch. There were several micro-moths but the only macro was a Heart and Dart in the hour I was trapping. A Caddisfly, possibly Mystacides longicornis  was also caught. Given longer, the park could produce some interesting stuff so I will experiment further. Several Common Frogs and Common Toads were seen and also 3 or 4 bats, but as I didn't have my bat detector on me I couldn't hazard an identification although they looked like Pipistrelles at one stage it looked like two of them were having a bit of a dog-fight! Meanwhile, the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter was impressive.

Heart and Dart

Mystacides longicornis 

Common Toad

Moth trap in action

Venus and Jupiter

At the station this morning was a Meadow Brown and a Large Skipper. Evening-primroses were in flower.

Evening-primrose

Narroways

It was the annual hay cut today and we found a huge Common Toad up on Church Field. A single Jackdaw flew over and there was a scruffy Silver Y moth plus lots of Helophilus and Eristalis hoverflies.

Common Toad


At Fairlawn Road a Red Admiral was nectaring on Buddleia and there were lots of hoverflies as noted on Narroways. A pair of Garden Spiders were courting I think, the (presumed) male gingerly waving his front leg towards the female who sprang at him and forced him to withdraw. A Chiffchaff was calling nearby.

Red Admiral

Garden Spiders

A party of 8 Starlings were sat on the roofs of houses in St Andrews Road - the first Starlings I've seen for a month or two.

Starlings