Just a brief one. Spent this morning birding before going away to Manchester til Monday. Walked the entirety of blotts pit, hoping for some migrant passerines on the eastern banks, such as wheatear or whinchat. No such luck unfortunately, but a couple of
Common Sandpipers on Hackett's lakes made it worthwhile, and there were good numbers of
Swift and
House Martin about.
On the western side, I finally managed my first
Cuckoo of the year, a nice male which sat out on a fenceline for a while, and Alan got me onto my first
Gropper for the site, a species i've been after for a while.
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| Cuckoo |
I also went round the finger ponds later on with the dog, but didnt add much to the list, although as usual the place was teeming with warblers, particularly Whitethroats. The cuckooflower must have known about my sighting this morning, as it was flowering in abundance, and I found some orange-tip butterfly eggs on some. This and garlic mustard seem to be the favoured foodplants of this species.
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| Cuckooflower - with orange-tip egg |
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