Just couldn't resist an hour around Haskayne Cutting before I went into work today, conditions were so, well, summery.
The Yellowhammers were going beserk, with at least three males singing in the area, each competing to see who's gob would open the widest, as their summery song drifted across the hot morning.
Superb little birds.
Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat singing in the Cutting itself, with Tree Sparrow, Great Tit etc.
I confess I gave up counting Painted Ladies when I got past 57 in the first 30 minutes.
Marsh Orchids blooming away in the damper areas, with some plants having gone over already, but enough were still looking sharp enough for a spot of plant photography.
Really gorgeous morning - even the Collared Doves looked good in the clean light, and the Common Buzzards were a-circling and a-hovering in several places around Plex.
At least three Corn Bunts singing away too.
All very peaceful, and it left me suitably chilled before I headed into work to find that every single car in the Western hemisphere was trying to get onto Ainsdale Beach, making for a manic day.
Just how many barbecues and lost children do you need on a Sunday?
Painted Ladies still coming over the beach, and interestingly, the sea fishermen who launch their boats from Ainsdale beach reported a pod of 20 Bottle Nosed Dolpins, leaping and cruising about out past the Lennox rig in the hot weather.
Big shoal of Mackerel out there, which is probably what lured them in...great cetacean record, a pity they weren't visible from land, but if it stays hot and the Mackerel come inshore, you never know your luck.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Red Kite over Mere Sands Wood today around 5pm heading eastwards, circling twice, high and to the right of Rufford hide
Up to 40 Painted Ladies through my garden from 3-5pm, travelling fast.
Hi John,
Counts of Painted Lady at Marshside this weekend: On my weekly Butterfly census I counted 174 on the transect I walk.
Plus I counted 217 in 30 mins moving along the bank by the cattle enclosure at Marshside Road.
The ones I saw were very pale, this was probably due to the vast distance they had flown causing them to lose many of their wing scales.
In 30 years of butterfly recording I have never encountered a migration as big as this. Mike.
There was a newly emerged female Lime Hawkmoth on a Birch tree trunk in my garden this morning, and Silver Ys have been feeding at the Red Valerian since the weekend.
Although I've seen recently arrived Red Admirals egg laying at Crosby and Red Rocks, I've yet to see any of the hordes of female Painted Ladies taking any interest in any Thistles.
The first waves of insects seemed to consist, almost entirely, of ghostly almost scale-less females but at Hoylake on Saturday there were many small fresh pink angular winged males and I witnessed many pairs spiralling up in courtship flight but no matings resulted.
Cursory searches of Thisle plants have failed to reveal a single egg!
With that amazing influx I expected the plants to be liberally spattered with eggs by now.
Maybe Nature has determined that they're all sterile because of their excessive abundance.
We had a Lime Hawkmoth in the garden at Banks on Saturday, never seen one before.