A rare spot of birding

I used to think of myself as a bit of a birder, then I was a birder who looked at other wildlife, and these days it's the other wildlife that I look at most. I still enjoy a spot of birding though, so when I got a chance to have a couple of hours to myself at Dungeness on a recent family holiday, it was a nice change of pace. Just before we'd arrived on the south coast, a buff-breasted sandpiper (a vagrant from  America) had been reported, along with a cattle egret - a species that I've seen all over the world, but never in the UK. The egret was very obliging, hanging out with some cows on a field by the entrance track. That brought my UK birdlist up to a rather under-whelming 244 species, could I make it 245. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be - the sandpiper had probably departed a day or two before, a despite some concerted efforts to string a distant juvenile Ruff, it wasn't meant to be.

Terrible phone-scoped picture of the Cattle Egret, being an Egret next to some cattle

Of course, even though birds were the main focus of attention, I couldn't help stopping to look at a few insects along the way. The ditches by the side of the entrance track were playing host to the curiously spotty eyed Eristalinus sepulchralis, a common wetland species, and on the main part of the reserve I saw my first Helophilus trivittatus of the year. This latter is a migrant species which occurs in variable numbers each year, and differs from the resident Helophilus species in lacking a black stripe on the face, as well as generally being a larger and paler looking insect. I'd also packed the moth trap in the hope of catching a migrant or two, and succeeded with a handsome bordered straw perched on the top of the trap one morning. After last year's influx these seem to have been a lot thinner on the ground this year.

Eristalinus sepulchralis

Helophilus trivittatus

Bordered Straw

On the way back from the south coast, it turned out that another RSPB reserve, Rainham Marshes, is conveniently placed around half-way on the journey, and even has a nice cafe to grab some lunch, so that's what we did, and as the weather was still glorious, we went for a stroll onto the reserve. We failed to see any of the burgeoning population of water voles - although the grass snake swimming down one of the channels might have had something to do with that, but we did see another Rainham speciality, the endangered Shrill Carder Bee. Most of the individuals seen were looking at bit the worse for wear so late in the year, but one or two fresher looking ones, presumably recently emerged queens, were also around.

Shrill Carder Bee

Back at home the ivy is still the main attraction, with a pair of Sericomyia silentis the highlight. I saw a fair few of these during my travels earlier in the year, but this is the first time I've seen them in Bedfordshire. I was also very pleased that a dark looking Syrphus with thin looking stripes rewarded closer inspection by turning out to be Syrphus torvus, a common species, but one I rarely record due to the difficulty in recognising it as different from the other Syrphus species in the field.

Sericomyia silentis

Syrphus torvus - If you look very, very closely you can just about see the hairs in the eyes that are diagnostic for this species

Autumn highlights

As summer draws to a close, the number of insects starts to drop, but there are still plenty of things to see if you know where to look. One of the best places is a good stand of flowering ivy, which on a sunny day can be absolutely covered with bees and hoverflies. Luckily for me, there is a cracking clump of ivy flowering just about close enough to The Lodge for a lunchtime visit, which I've spent a couple of lunchtimes this week inspecting.

Initially the sheer number of insects is a bit disorientating, like a falcon with a flock of starlings it can be hard to focus on any individuals and make sense of what's present. Once I'd got my eye in I could see that the vast majority of insects were made up of a few species, honeybees, Myathropa florea, Eristalis pertinax and tenax with a decent smattering of Ivy bees, Colletes hederae, showing that they're well established after first turning up a couple of years ago.

Myathropa florea

Eristalis tenax

Ivy Bee, Colletes hederae

The trick then is to try and spot the different species amongst the swarm of commoner things. Sometimes it's easy, like with the impressively large hornet mimics Volucella zonaria and inanis, other times a fleeting glimpse of something that looked a little bit different disappearing into the depths of the ivy leaves a sense of thwarted excitement. The real holy grail for me this Autumn is the enigmatic Golden hoverfly, Callicera spinolae, an ivy specialist that's restricted to Eastern England.

Volucella zonaria

Volucella pellucens

Bee-wolf taking a break from bee wolfing

So far that ambition remains just that, but on Wednesday morning another one was fulfilled by my trusty moth trap. I haven't been trapping that frequently recently, an energetic 10 month old has made going through the trap in the morning a bit more of a challenge. With the recent mild weather I thought it was worth a try though, and with recent reports of double-digit catches of Convolvulus Hawk-moths on the south coast I made a throwaway comment that one of those would be nice. Unbelievably when I went out to the trap in the morning a magnificent beast of a Convolvulus was sitting calmly inside the trap! This is the first record of a live Convolvulus hawk-moth in Bedfordshire since 2013, a new species for me and a minor celebrity when I took it into the office in the morning!

Convolvulus Hawk-moth, what a moth!

So good it deserves two photos

Hopefully one good thing will lead to another, I'll be hanging around the ivy hoping so!