Back In Birdland: Awesome August....well it was for me!

August seemed to fly by, but there were plenty of sights to be seen and some signs of movement as the month drew to an end.

Peacock

There had been an abundance of butterflies in our garden, some days we had what seemed just Painted Lady's everywhere and some really fresh condition ones. But it's nice to see some different species get a look in now and again, Peacock's looked stunning in the sun along with the Red Admirals, nearing the end of month a Brimstone flew through the garden, always a welcome sight as it's normally the first one you see on an early spring day.

Migrant Hawker

This Migrant Hawker held, and still is, territory over the neighbours garden as well as ours.

The patterning on the underside of the Painted Lady butterfly is very intricate and lovely, as is I think on the Red Admiral.

Painted Lady

The Swift numbers started to dwindle as they passed over the garden, heading back south to Africa and bringing on the end of summer, I will sit for ages just watching these masters of the skies zip back and forth at speed, and I'll be eagerly awaiting their welcome return.

Common Swift

Lesser Whitethroat

Along the clifftops I watched 3 Lesser Whitethroat, and in off the sea came a pair of Hobby, I had been noticing Hobby quite frequently and throughout August I watched them chase Swifts and House Martins, what an aerial combat they were. I also watched one Hobby mixed in amongst a loose group of Black Headed Gulls catching insects on the wing with them.

Lesser Whitethroat

Hobby

I also noted Peregrine passing over the garden on a number of days, presumably ones from the Cromer Church brood. Buzzards were in good numbers, upto 8 soaring overhead at a time.

Hobby

Pied Flycatcher

During the last week of August there was a noticeable movement of passerines, with reports of Pied Flycatcher all over the place I kept an eye out, I had seen them before from the back garden in the trees behind so it seemed a good place to start and low and behold one indeed showed as it fed amongst the tree canopy. But that was just the start of it, I continued seeing at least 6 Pied Fly's around the house, along with a Redstart on a couple of days August had definitely ended well.

Pied Flycatcher

MOTHS

Mothing through August was exceptional, not only did I add to the year list on nearly every trapping but I also added a few new species I'd not seen before, as the month came to an end it was the same suspects on the last trap and nothing exciting, but I hope to still get new additions to the year and garden list through September. The 2019 Year List now stands at 181 Macro moth species.