Yesterday I spent another day on Portland trawling the island for
whatever scraps I could find on the land and sea. I started at The Verne and
Fancy’s Farm locating a couple of Whitethroat and a Chiffy!
A sea watch at the Bill in very pleasant conditions had me locate
a couple of Puffin that have been hanging around the colony over the last
couple of months. This is positive news for the island as this species was
thought to have moved on to pastures new with only irregular single bird
sightings in recent times.
I spoke to Paul Rendall who was also successful in seeing the
Puffins that had drifted up towards the colony. He was delighted to connect
with the birds. I returned to the observatory to have a look through the moths
before re-joining Paul to go on an orchid find!
Elephant Hawk Moth I had in my West Sutton garden a while back (I’ve
been living in Dorset for 4years!!) but have not seen this species in Dorset
until now.
Common Wainscot is a new moth for my ever growing tally. The
garden trap is definitely helping with identification of moths at the
observatory.
Cream-spot Tiger is not new but it was nice to see an individual
with its wings open showing off its yellow-orange hind-wing!
Paul took me to a spot on the Island where there were the most Bee
Orchids I had seen before with a Pyramid Orchid which I neglected to photograph
during the Bee fest!
Another plant was shown to me which is likely to be Bedstraw
Broomrape (viz Observation.org) which again would be easily missed if you were
not aware of its presence! Thanks Paul!
I continued with harbour watch and finished the day at Radipole RSPB on another Bearded Reedling stake out which was unsuccessful. I’m currently on a 50% hit rate for this species!
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