Saturday 21 July 2012

A Black-necked Grebe, and a Fritillary?

A very nice summer plumaged Black-necked Grebe was found at Langford this afternoon by Mike Warren - a first for the site. Unfortunately, the picture below doesn't nearly do it justice as it was horribly backlit, which my camera struggled with. Also present was an adult Yellow-legged Gull, but not a huge amount else on the bird front.

Black-necked Grebe at Langford Lowfields
However, there were plenty of butterflies around, including my first Gatekeepers of the year, and at least 6 (and maybe up to 10+) Purple Hairstreaks in the young oaks between the footpath/stream and the 'first' silt lagoon (if approaching from the south, having just passed through the wood). These were flitting around in the tree tops, in typical style, above the footpath at the northern end of the oak copse. Intriguingly, whilst watching these, I also briefly saw a Fritillary in flight, which I'm pretty sure was a Silver-washed, being chased by a Comma... This is a rare butterfly in Notts, so I hung around to see if it would reappear, but it didn't. I might have a look for it tomorrow.

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