Maiden's 'Blotch'


This morning's garden MV haul was small and one of little variety, but every catch is different and something of note is usually involved - such as this well-marked Maiden's Blush (above) with extensive dark blotching along the outer edge of the fore-wing. A 'normal' individual is shown below.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rarity and COVID

Image
The east coast of Britain, plus a rash of Scottish Isles, is/are playing host to a stellar cast of rare vagrants - Masked Shrike, Tennessee Warbler, Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler, Siberian Thrush, White’s Thrush, Eye-browed Thrush, Two-barred Greenish Warbler - I could go on... plus a mouthwatering back-up courtesy of multiple Red-flanked Bluetails, Radde’s Warblers and more Yellow-browed Warblers than it is possible to accurately count. For many birders the knee-jerk reaction is to head straight to the hot-spots where the rarity - and the action - is taking place. And who can blame them. But, things are different now. Joining the ‘to be expected’ moral conundrums that usually accompany such a birding scrum (trespass, toggers and carbon foot-print) there is a new concern in town, that of the COVID-19 virus. A rare bird = a birding crowd. When something as modest as a scarce migrant can gather 20-30 birders within minutes, what chance do we stand of conforming to health guidelines? There
Read more

Meaningless

Image
Yesterday evening I had written a lengthy post on the subject of birding behaviour during the second lockdown, but then deleted it rather than publish it - this after a bit of soul-searching when I thought better of it, and decided that it might ruffle a few feathers That wasn't something that I wished to happen.  So I tweeted this instead: As can be seen, it has gathered a lot of interest, with over 58,000 views, 40 Retweets and getting on for 950 likes. But what about the 'not likes'? Even though I do put out the odd contentious tweet from time to time I am still a sensitive soul and do not like to think that anybody would be upset by what I post. I felt happy that the above post would be taken as a pat-on-the-back to those birders who have stuck to the government lockdown recommendations. Plenty haven't - or at least have played loose with the nitty-gritty of lockdown - and this has annoyed me somewhat. I could go into a bit more detail, but really don't want to.
Read more

More Whinchats

Image
This morning saw a four-hour session at Priest Hill. The most notable event was that I actually heard a calling Tree Pipit as it flew SW - it must have been low and close. Not much else on the move though, a handful of Meadow Pipits and single Yellow and Grey Wagtail. At least four Whinchats were present, a couple which are not 'hangers-ons', as they exhibited wider and brighter supercillia than those seen over the past couple of weeks.
Read more