It is that time of year when birds start to move, those that joined us to breed in the summer are now heading back south for the winter and those that headed north to breed and starting to head back. There are also birds that generally disperse, especially juveniles, in all directions and could turn up anywhere.
Here at Lake Vyrnwy our location is not ideal for attracting these migraters as the majority will use the coastline. However we did get a rather elegant Great White Egret which was first spotted on 7th August and stayed for just over a week (15th August) at the top end of the lake viewable from the Lakeside Hide. Photos of the bird can be seen on the Montgomeryshire Bird Blog.
Great White Egret at Lake Vyrnwy in May 2014 (Photo by Gavin Chambers)
Above is a photo of the bird that we had in May 2014 which was an adult in breeding plumage, whereas this years bird is in immature or non-breeding plumage. Though I did see the bird last year I managed to pick the wrong week to have a holiday!! Despite arriving back on the 16th the bird had done a ‘runner’. I did however find a single Teal, my first of the summer, and a nice flock of 4 male Common Scoters which keeps my run of scoters going having now seen 104 Common Scoters (and a Surf Scoter) over three summers.
In the woods the summer migrants are now gone with the resident birds starting to flock together. You can typically find Long-tailed, Blue, Great, Coal and occasionally Marsh Tits moving through the trees together with the odd Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff or Treecreeper mixed in. Juvenile birds are also on show with young Bullfinch and Redpoll seen recently from the Centenary Hide, plus a glimpse of a Kingfisher on the 23rd.
Juvenile Bullfinch from Centenary Hide (Photo by Gavin Chambers)
You may think the blogs title suggests a story about bats, but in fact it is actually to do with Hoverflies! I have recently become very interested (OK obsessed!) with finding hoverflies and one of the first ones I found to be reasonably easy to identify was one that showed a ‘Batman’ symbol on its thorax.
Myathropa florea at Lake Vyrnwy (Photo by Gavin Chambers)
An interesting fact about hoverflies is that you can tell a male from a female by looking at their eyes (for the majority of species). If their eyes meet at the top it’s a male and if there’s a gap it’s a female. So the photo above is of a female Myathropa florea and can you spot the Batman mark?
Chyrsotoxum arcuatum at Lake Vyrnwy (Photo by Gavin Chambers)
A number of hoverfly species go for the mimicry tactic to put predators off and my latest find is typical of this. The above Chyrsotoxum arcuatum has a very Wasp-like pattern and takes me to around 35 species that I have found and had ID confirmed by experts on Facebook.
Plant of the (last few) Weeks
Broad-leaved Helleborine / Caldrist Llydanddail (Epipactis helleborine) (Photo by Gavin Chambers)
A nice find by Gethin while heading out to pull Himalayan Balsam..... yes we are still attacking the Balsam!