A long time coming..

Chinese Character, the 'bird dropping moth' is fairly common but seems to have avoided me at both sites over the 26 months of trapping and also at Blashford over the years; I guess the last would have been at Pulborough some years back. Evergestis limbata is much less widely spread but presumably here from original populations on Hayling or thereabouts. Both NfG/T.

Otherwise nothing special although yet another dark Box-tree Moth - an Essex trapper tweeted a catch of 154 of these recently!!  This Small Dusty Wave was doing a good job of blending in to the garage wall.

Birdwise TD did well locally with Hoopoe yesterday and Wryneck this morning; I should really make the effort to get out early😁😁

Locally, the change in vegetation i.e removal of Buddleia, the swamping of Water Mint and lack of umbellifers and Hemp Agrimony meant that today's Volucella zonaria was the first this year here. Plenty of Migrant Hawkers over the reeds and odd ones being blown over into the garden. The real telltale sign of autumn is the exponential increase in spiders/webs.

First day of meteorological Autumn..

... was gloriously blue and quiet and with just the right amount of light headwind to promote a mass of eastbound hirundines, mostly Swallows. Apparently two Marsh Harriers were present but not seen by me. Wader numbers have increased with 150+ godwits, Turnstones up to 40+ in the harbour, ten Snipe, three each of Green (one below) and Common Sandpipers and the single Ruff. Canada Geese were everywhere, certainly in excess of 350. Sadly, little else, still no Ivy Bees, just Eristalis horticola of interest on the hover front and the typical three species of Odonata, Southern Hawker and Common Darter being here below.

To Autumn by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Another 'curate's egg' type of day...

...at Blashford where a juvenile Peregrine was circling over Ibsley Water on arrival before drifting off eastwards. News of an Osprey at Kingfisher Lake didn't materialise into a Tern Hide flyover sadly. Plenty of the usual geese and fish-eaters here but just one Common Sandpiper and Walter who had earlier been on Ivy Lake. Later, scanning produced two redhead Goosanders and a surprise in the form of two Cattle Egrets (a site tick I think) which appeared out of thin air and promptly vanished mid-conversation twenty minutes later.

On Ivy Lake a brief visit by one Kingfisher was to the one perch where photography is defeated by light all day; and it scarpered 'tout-suite'.
In the distance, one or possibly two Hobbies put on a great flying display.

Insectwise the heather held a single Dasysyrphus tricinctus and the pond area a female Volucella zonaria plus Xylota segnis; pretty much no other hovers, no Colletes etc but three hunting Hornets and, obviously at this time of year, loads of Migrant Hawkers.

Three tatty Brown Argus and a fresh Comma were the best of the butterflies

The home moth trap held this smart Yellow Shell and Blashford's traps just this Angle Shades and Pebble Hooktip.

Finally, the Red Arrows sped eastwards returning after a display session at Bournemouth.

Off to check the fence line...

... a euphemism for... err.... checking for Spot Flys on a fence post!!
On the reserve a stint spp, presumed Little, but distant in company of a Dunlin and six Black-tailed Godwits plus several Green Sandpipers and at least eight Snipe. Three or four Buzzards and three Kestrels kept thing on their toes.

A mixed flock near Little Hanger held Blackcap, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler and a few Chiffs in amongst tits and Treecrepers.

Highlight at Westmead was a cracking Hobby chasing dragonflies.

With things a bit thin this  Corizus hyoscyami in the courtyard was the ONLY photo-op!!

A very still, windless but mostly overcast day with wasps outnumbering everything else especially on umbellifers. Nothing exceptional amongst the hovers although probable multiple Cheilosia pagana were the first I've seen for a while and a couple of Dasysyrphus albiostratus were always good to get. This (typically unidentifiable) Sharp-tailed Bee (Coelioxys spp) was the first I've managed to photograph. These tend to parasitise Megachile spp although I didn't notice any nor indeed much other bee action; again, no  C. hederae.
This smart Small Copper (above) popped up and was gone in a flash; a supporting cast of four Holly Blues and a few Red Admirals was it for butterflies

Birdwise, three of four Whitethroats and maybe 75 mixed hirundines were about it for passerines. A typically west bound Raven was very audible.

The singles of Ruff and Common Sandpiper were elusive on far sides of the islands with the former only visible from the third hide looking south.

This Cormorant was curiously close on the 'groyne' adjacent to the river outflow and not disturbed by the large duck-feeding family group on the beach; I'm not sure I've ever seen one inside the harbour.

Earlier the moth trap didn't produce much (25/13) with a smart, fresh L-album Wainscot the best; thankfully still not caught any wasps here.

From garden Scaeva pyrastri, Marmalade Fly, Sphaerophoria spp and
Hairy Shieldbug (formerly Sloe Bug) Dolycoris baccarum (below).

Solved last week's Blashford hover mystery and, as suspected, Chalcosyrphus nemorum.

Last visit to TH produced little and just this V. inanis photographed.

Today in 10 minutes at Ivy Lake no sign of any Black Terns and just 60+ Sand Martins. Then on to the Fox for lunch with ex-colleagues; nice curry and Doom Bar and good company (photo courtesy MD). A postprandial stroll along the prom produced a wader skittering along the beach which looked like a Common Sandpiper.