What have you seen

Thanks for letting me know what my ‘caterpillar’  photo was.  It wasn’t as colourful as one I saw at the end of last year

That was what I remember it as now, "Vapourer Moth"

We had a Turtle Dove on the wires over our field today and was calling away lovely to see and hear as not many birds singing now especially with the hot weather.

This morning on my walk along the Leeds Liverpool canal I could see shoals of bream and roach also as I crossed over a footbridge I could clearly see a large Pike keeping quite still, no doubt waiting for its breakfast to swim past.

Unfortunately the reason I could do this is because the canal water level is very low and there is no boat movement to stir up the silt. Very low levels of the top up reservoirs in Yorkshire and Lancashire have meant that locks have had to be chained up in an effort to retain the water.

The last time water levels were this low was in 1995 when water tankers had to be used to top up the reservoirs. I fear a hosepipe ban is imminent unless we get some heavy rain soon.  

Pleased to see a Jersey Tiger moth in our garden once more, on a door this time, they seem to spend a lot of time soaking up the sun on hard surfaces. Have never seen one on a plant or tree.  

Just heard that one of the pairs of stone curlews at NWT Weeting Heath is raising a second brood

That is good news Oneputt, the last time I saw them was many years ago not far from Salisbury Plain.

We seemed to have had a good summer for Hummingbird Hawk Moths had 8 flying around the flowers left on the Salvias as not much out now with this heat and lovely to watch.

After a slightly disappointing visit to Wicken Fen on the way to our CL tonight, I spotted a partridge about fifteen metres away from the motorhome plus a half dozen red deer grazing a few hundred metres away. Five adults and a fawn charging around and annoying the grown-ups.

Doing a bit of watering and went to fill the watering can from the water butt only to have a young tree frog jump out of the can do not know who was more surprised any way in a different place in the shade.  Have noticed that the last couple of days that a lot of Swallows and House martins are gathering ready to go south very early indeed and the nightingales and Golden Orioles have gone already and thunk this weather will have a dramatic change to our wildlife here although so far even with hot weather it has been a good year for butterflies which I enjoy but quieting down now.

Saw a dead Roe deer on side of road the other day when we went shopping afraid it is a hazard around here.

While sat having our lunch around noon by The Grove car park in Hamsterley Forest there were a couple of bats flying around the glade. I can't ever remember seeing bats flying and hunting in the middle of the day before. Also heard a Goshawk calling as we walked back along by the river.