Holme Pierrepont - 5 July

Well we never expected a repeat of last week and the weather didn't look quite so promising, but it was another cracking morning. It was mainly scattered cloud with sunny spells, a very light breeze and a brief downpour as we took down at lunchtime. The main difference to last week though was that we felt the sun's power earlier and this slowed the session down sooner.

Nevertheless, we finished up on 141 birds processed. The catch was dominated by young birds and of the few adults we caught, several were beginning to moult. Blackcaps and Reed Warblers were top species again and the first smart young Sedges had fledged:
We caught young of all common warblers with the exception of Lesser Whitethroat. Here's a handsome young Common Whitethroat:

Not always obvious in the field, but fairly common once you start netting are adult female Reed Buntings such as this one which acquire surprisingly dark head patterns:

Bullfinches were out as families today and we trapped several including this adult male.

Sight records included 2 Curlew overhead, a single Hobby (narrowly missing a net...), a Grey Wagtail, a flock of high, soaring Cormormants and 2 Oystercatchers. At last the first Brown Hawkers appeared and a single Black-tailed Skimmer:
The orchids have pretty much finished flowering, but the odd one was still there. I have to admit that I'm often guilty of making assumptions when it comes to flowers and I had remarked several times how tall one particular plant was without even considering it might not be a Common Spotted, but now I look carefully at the flowers I'm wondering if it is actually a Southern Marsh Orchid. Anyone care to comment?

Despite the odd downpour, the site remains very dry and as can be seen below, the back pool has extensive areas of mud showing.

This doesn't seem to have discouraged the reed growth though and in the last couple of weeks our paths have become a little bit overgrown...

Pete