Chamber's Farm Wood,Sunday 10th July 2022.

 A change of scenery today and a nice little trip to the Bardney Limewoods to see what goodies i could find.

After finding a parking place on the approach road as the visitor centre car park is currently closed and the approach road being re-surfaced,i walked the short distance into the woodland.

The first place i stopped was the Butterfly garden and i found a cracking Hoverfly,of which i've only ever seen one before,Ferdinandea cuprea.

This species is essentially a woodland species,with a widespread but local distribution,so a nice species to find.

It wasn't long before i was watching my first targets,with 2 Purple Emperor,Purple Hairstreak and the first of 24 Silver-washed Fritillary and all before 9am.

I carried on up to five ways,meeting a few others looking and enjoyed another couple of Purple Emperors,more SWF and a very mobile Hummingbird Hawkmoth.

I had only 1 Purple Emperor on the ground today and that was brief to say the least,but it was great to see these lovely butterflies cruising around,i even had one flying around me at one point,just great to watch......still not as good as the Camberwell i found in 2006 though!.

 I walked around the Minting Triangle seeing more of the same and some nice dragons which included several Brown and 1 Southern Hawker and the numbers of Butterflies were pretty impressive,with 18 species seen during the visit which included 10 Purple Emperor,14 Purple Hairstreak,24 Silver-washed Fritillary,51 Small White and 8 White Admiral.

By now it was lunch time and unbearable in the heat,so i wandered back to the car and headed home.

The following are my best efforts with the camera.

Hoverfly Sp.- Ferdinandea cuprea.

Hoverfly Sp. - Myathropa florea.

Silver-washed Fritillary.

Newstead Abbey,Sunday 3rd July 2022.

 Not really a walking post today,but like last year when we visited Chatsworth in Derbyshire,a selection of photos of the lovely house,gardens and grounds of this lovely place which once housed the very famous poet Lord George Gordon Byron.

The following are my favourite photos from the day.

Local Patch Update......26th June & 2nd July 2022.

Another compilation of visits to the local birding patch at East Halton,with some nice birds seen and also some cracking insects over the two visits.

19th June

An early start today in usual style,starting at Winter's saw this site showing just how good it is for migration,with 2 adult Green Sandpipers being present now,but also the welcome sight of a Great-white Egret passing by north,with a stunning adult Med Gull heading in the same direction.

Both these species were new additions to the local patch year list,the Egret being only the 3rd i have seen here.

A nice surprise here also,came in the form of a female Gadwall seen with a brood of 5 ducklings,the first breeding for the species i have noted on the local patch to date and really nice to see.

Other sightings around Winter's consisted of a couple of Willow Warblers and fledglings of several species including Blue Tit,Great Tit,Chiffchaff,Dunnock and Goldfinch.

The shoreline held a few species also,with Curlew,Cormorant,Shelduck and Oystercatcher's all showing nicely.

I then decided to walk along the length of the mitigation area,with little bird sightings along here due to the ever dwindling pools,i concentrated on counting insects,with some decent counts noted.

Meadow Browns featured heavily,with 131 being seen,with 12 Small Heath,7 Small Skipper,27 Ringlet and my first sighting of the year of Gatekeeper with just one noted.

The roadside verges between the Skitter and East Halton village really have been impressive insect wise lately and today things were notched up a level,with me finding the first patch records of both Volucella zonaria and Eristalinus sepulchralis.

The former was first seen in this country on the south coast in the 1930's,but then had been spreading slowly north,but this has accelarated rapidly during the 1990's.It has an unusual social life as a larvae,living in social Wasp nests,such as Hornets,scavenging food from the nest cavities.

The latter species,i had suspected would be here and was nicely confirmed after i got some decent photographs showing the hairs on the lower parts of the eye only when compared to its sister species Eristalinus Aeneus,which has hairless eyes.This shows that both species do occur on the patch,another species added to the ever growing list.

The remainder of the visit saw more of the same species recorded,such as Meadow Brown and Ringlets,with no more notable birds seen.

2nd July

Winter's again proved to be the most productive sight for bird sighting's again on today's visit,with it being high tide,a few nice species were bathing and feeding on the grassland and included a partially summer plumaged male Ruff,a juvenile Little-ringed Plover,now 3 Green Sandpipers and the first decent flock of Islandica Black-tailed Godwits of the autumn,with 87 birds being present.

I looked,as always through the Black-tails and managed to find one colour-ringed bird,with the combinations of Red over Black Flag on the left tarsus and Blue over Green on the right tarsus.I had recorded the same bird here on the 27th of September 2021 and just goes to show how this species uses particular sites as stop offs on migration.

It was also seen at Leighton Moss RSPB on the 22nd of April this year,no doubt fuelling up before heading for Iceland to breed.

Also around Winter's today were pretty decent numbers of fledged species and included 17 Long-tailed Tit,14 Blue Tits,10 Great Tits and a Cetti's Warbler.

The Skitter area proved productive again on the insect front,with me finding one of the most distinctive Flies i think i have ever seen,the Soldier Fly Oxycera trilineata.This lime green stunner was found sheltering from the brisk south westerly wind on the edge of the plantation and is a new record not just for the patch,but also for me as well.

Bird wise the Skitter held a few bits which included another Green Sand making it 4 for the day,the first 2 Common Sands of the autumn,9 Avocet and three broods of Shelduck,14,9 and 2.

So another couple of really productive visits to this cracking patch of mine and long may it continue with more interesting insects and cracking birds.

Rabbit,East Halton Skitter.

Hoverfly Sp.Eristalinus aeneus,East Halton Skitter.

East Halton Skitter.

Soldier Fly Sp. Oxycera trilineata

Sunrise Over The Humber,East Halton.

Buck Roe Deer,Winter's Pond.

Buck Roe Deer,Winter's Pond.

Winter's Pond.

Skitter Road,East Halton.

Volucella pelluscens,East Halton.

Female Scorpion Fly Sp .Panorpa communis.

Skitter Beck,East Halton Skitter.

Hoverfly Sp. Volucella zonaria,East Halton Skitter.

Hoverfly Sp. Cheilosia illustrata,East Halton Skitter.

Hoverfly Sp. Episyrphus balteatus,East Halton Skitter.

Hoverfly Sp. Eristalinus sepulchralis.

Note The Hairs On The Lower Part Of The Eyes,Indicative Of This Species.