Saturday 11 July 2015

Red-footed Falcon and Black Redstart - Stoke, Staffordshire


Headed to Stoke for the Red-footed Falcon, the bird was at the former Chatterley Whitfield colliery, we parked up and walked down just a little bit and there was the bird sitting on the wires, stunning bird so striking with those orangy red feet, we stayed for about four hours and had superb views and got some photos my photos do not do this bird justice.
Also a very exciting bonus was a Black Redstart I was over the moon had been waiting a while to see one, had lovely views. Had been a brilliant day 2 lifers, and I love these twitches it is so nice the buzz you get and bumping into people you know, love the atmosphere :)















Tuesday 7 July 2015

Melodious and Moths

Bird wise it has been quite the past couple of weeks but we did pop and see the Melodious again, and it popped up on the gorse finally a photo with no branches covering it :) We were both over the moon and Dave's photo made it onto the Review of the week on Bird Guides and Rare Bird Alert so proud to see his photo up there, all the time and effort he has put in he more than deserves it :)
The Melodious has now been there 4 weeks, amazing that he was stayed this long, had so many enjoyable visits :)


We have been setting up the Moth Trap in Dave's garden the past couple of weeks, we have had some beautiful Moths, it is so exciting watching them come in and then in the morning seeing what's in there, I have really taken to the Moths still love my birds but the Moth's are so fun and another great hobby, enjoying the Micro Moths too there tricky little things to identify but that makes them challenging and I love a challenge. 
We also went to Titchwell, Norfolk and had a few new Moths including Poplar Hawkmoth.
I have had many new Moth's but I think my fav has to be the Elephant Hawkmoth that bright pink there stunning and so enjoyable to photograph there lovely natured they crawl on your finger and Dave even took a photo of one on my nose lol All the Moths are lovely, I also lent Dave's Moth trap and set it up in my Garden but didn't get even close to what Dave get's but did get a new Moth Buff Arches another stunning Moth and very photogenic, I have also managed to photograph quite a few Micro moths just by putting the garden light on and they come to it, I love it get excited for darkness now :) 
I have chosen a selection of Moths below but there has still been many other beautiful ones I haven't put any Micro moths I will do a blog on them when I get some more and become more familiar with them :) 

Elephant Hawkmoth

Elephant Hawkmoth

Elephant Hawkmoth

Elephant Hawkmoth

Buff Ermine

Pale Tussock

Poplar Hawkmoth

Brimstone

Light Emerald

Swallowtail

The Spinach

Common Emerald

Green silver-lines

Ghost Moth

Buff-tip

Buff Arches

Buff Arches