Sunny weather this morning, good numbers of small birds out feeding, mainly seen from the woodland trail. Best bird was a whinchat, an adult male, that had been colour-ringed nearby in early June. It bred successfully and was seen with fledged juveniles in early July. I had assumed all our breeding whinchats had moved off and we were seeing migrants moving through now. There was another whinchat in the area along with several stonechats, on female stonechat still had three young juveniles from her third brood trying to beg food from her. Other birds seen included a whitetroat (rare on the reserve), a couple of willow warblers, a chiffchaff, reed buntings, redpolls and meadow pipits.
In the past few days six black grouse have been seen, all males and a merlin flew past the visitor centre.
Moth trapping on Monday night produced only eight moths in total, but did include a new species for the reserve, garden dart. Peacock and small tortoiseshell butterflies are out, if the wind dies down, and a painted lady had been seen on the edge of the reserve.