Peteralfreybirdingnotebook

It was mainly a week of family stuff and work with a two day trip to Hampshire (to Paulton's Park), a work day with Matt around the lodge on Thursday and in London working on Friday. 
Therefore natural history highlights have been restricted to the garden and moth traps and on Thursday I took Jacob to a Young Explorers session with the Pagham Harbour RSPB team. 
So in ...

Been hoping for one of these as it's a episodic speciality to the Selsey Peninsula. A nice surprise in the relatively quiet traps this morning following the arrival of the first proper rain in weeks over the last couple of days. A lifer and moth 706 for the garden and 511 for the year. 

I decided to do a full count of the birds of Pagham Harbour today. I started off at Church Norton and did the graveyard to the severals, then over to Ferry and the discovery area, then off to Halseys to owl copse and then circled round the back fields. Then a stop for milkshake at Berries on Tap and an early lunch at Runcton Farm Shop before doing North Wall to Pagham Spit. 

It felt decisively autumnal this morning in the cooler conditions and partly overcast skies. The moth traps were not as exciting as recent days but there were still a few migrants including 3 Small Marbled again (maybe the same ones?) and a new for year species in the form of a couple of Frosted Orange. Now on 506 for the year. A Greenshank flew over the garden this morning, the...

Cooler conditions are forecasted for tomorrow and there is plenty of rain in the forecast for next week. What with all the DFLs on the Peninsula at the moment. in the hot weather. the traffic is awful so it was a good excuse to spend the day at home and make the most of the rest of this heat wave. The best one for moth migrants so far.  
The moths traps were even more busy ...