The elephant in the room

Another spectacular finding in the moth trap on each of the last two trapping nights has been an Elephant Hawk-moth.

Although it looks good on the egg cartons in the moth trap I hoped for a few photos with a better background.  On a cool early morning the moth was happy to sit on my warm hands.

I brought it into the dining room for a brief photo shoot, first trying a paeony, Bowl of Beauty.

The moth found it a bit difficult to maintain a secure foothold so I tried a foxglove.

The moth was getting a bit bored by this stage and was revving up its flight muscles to get them warm.  You can see the wings are blurred even with the high-speed flash.

Eventually it flew off through the French doors to hide in the garden, perhaps by chance, or not, choosing a hiding place in the pink border with a matching pink and green background.

Here is a comparison between the Small Elephant Hawk-moth I caught a few weeks ago (L) and the Elephant Hawk-moth (R).  Not to scale as the small one is about 3/4 size.

Elephant Hawk-moths are fairly common and widespread.  They fly at dusk so I'll keep an eye on the viper's bugloss and see if I can spot one without using the light trap.

Exciting news on RoeDeerCam

Roe deer are difficult subjects for the trail cameras so I don't often target them, although they do sometimes wander past when I am after other things.  This time it was deliberate, and I ended up with some of the best footage I have had so far.

Roe deer fawns are born in mid May.  For several weeks they are too small to follow their mother around so she leaves them in cover while she forages and returns several times a day to suckle them.  Now a few weeks old, the fawns don't just lie up all day but wander around while they wait for mother to return, hopefully staying out of trouble.  I'll show the recordings in the order they were made.

The first recording was of a single fawn.  It was being pestered by mosquitos  and was calling for its mother.  Listen carefully and you can hear it squeaking.

Next up was a doe.  Although it is June she is still moulting out of her dark winter coat into a foxy red summer coat.

Even though they are not yet weaned, the fawns are starting to feed for themselves.  This short montage includes the first sign that there are twins.

And then this was what I had been planning, but it turned out even better than I had  hoped.

This was the camera set-up, with the cameras low down at deer eye-level.  I don't often use a tree but it was the only available support here.  The lower camera has a close-focus +0.5 dioptre lens.

And finally a yearling buck (with uneven small horns) in the early morning light.  The cameras are still in position in the hope of more exciting footage.

Garden birds

It has been an interesting week for birds on the feeders.  The most exciting sighting was a willow tit.  These photos were taken with the first camera to hand through the window.

I eventually got set up with a better lens with the window open but I have had only a few glimpses since.  This isn't a great photo but it does show the pale wing patch, said previously to be typical of willow tit (but watch the video in the link below).

My BTO Garden BirdWatch records show I have recorded a marsh tit three times in the past 25 years but never a willow tit.  Marsh and willow tits are hard to tell apart and my previous identifications could be wrong but I am grateful to Denise A, Phil A and Phil J for confirming the ID this time.  You can watch a short BTO video on telling marsh tit and willow tit apart here.

There are lots of woodpeckers as well and they tend to monopolise the peanut feeders.  Adults were still feeding fledglings this morning, three weeks after they first appeared.

Another rare summer sighting this week was a male siskin.  I see a few each winter but never before in the summer.  They did breed in the nature reserve only 1km away last year.

And another rare summer bird, a male reed bunting, a regular over the past three weeks.  I expect to see one or two in late spring but never before in the summer.

And previously reed buntings have always been ground feeders here but this one is happy on the seed feeder.

A pair of jays are here every day.  I hope they have a nest nearby and I may see young jays soon.  Jays nested in the garden last year but the nest was wiped out by carrion crows.

Activity on the feeders is frantic at the moment as there are so many young birds.  When it is here the willow tit isn't immediately obvious because there are so many young great tits.

There are almost 30 bird species in the garden each week, mostly regulars but every now and then a surprise.

News from WaterShrewCam

The water shrew appears on the trail camera every day, often just a glimpse as it dashes to and fro.

This short clip shows how frenetic its life is.

The recent lack of rain means there is no water flow so there is a film on the water and the shrew ends up looking a bit scruffy.  It has no difficulty in finding things to eat right at the water's edge. At the end of the next video the shrew has caught a spider and seems to be biting it without eating it - perhaps to disable it with a venomous bite to save it for later.

The last video shows a visit from a cousin -  a common shrew (Sorex araneus).  It has a good look round but, unlike the recent wood mouse, it does not appear to steal from the larder, perhaps because there was nothing left.  The video gives the opportunity to compare the two shrews.  The common shrew is smaller and slimmer with pointier nose and a proportionately shorter tail.  In infrared light it just looks paler but in daylight it would have tri-colour brown/cream colouration compared with the water shrew's black and white.  Notice a water scorpion (Nepa cinerea) in the water as the shrew passes.  It was lucky this was a common shrew and not the water shrew.

Woodpecker fledglings

This is something I look forward to at this time of year and a scene that has played out outside the kitchen window many times a day over the past two weeks.  The fledgling woodpeckers are usually brought to the feeders by their parents around the end of the first week of June but this year they were early - the first I saw was on the 29th May. Since then it has been very busy with the adults squabbling over access, even though there are two peanut feeders. There are one or two woodpeckers, or sometimes four or five, every time I look out of the window.

The view has changed a lot since last year.  Then the feeders were hanging from branches right outside the window but it meant the light was poor under the trees and the youngsters were often very difficult to see amongst the leaves. All the branches were lost in the great storm so now there is better light.  The feeders are now very close to the nearest oak and the chicks like to perch on the bark, although often in a spot where I can't get a clear view.

Sometimes the feeding requires flexibility from both parties.

The variation in the extent of the fledglings' red caps is striking, and more than I have noticed before.

Even though they have broods of four to five chicks, each adult usually brings one chick at a time, but occasionally two. This male had a very efficient system worked out with the chick on the feeder, even though it wasn't able to feed itself.

While this was going on another youngster was waiting patiently only half a metre away. 

Once the first was fed the parent immediately started feeding the second one.

And another half a metre away a third chick, presumably a bit older and from a different family, was on the other feeder, working out how to to feed itself.  I think the youngsters are only fed by the parents for a a couple of days before they are independent.

The woodpeckers seem to be the only birds that consistently bring their young to the feeders to be fed.  There are lots of other fledglings in the garden this week.  I saw a family of young nuthatches but they were staying in cover while their parents went to fetch the food.

This seems to have been a really good year for woodpeckers.  At this rate they will be eating more peanuts than the foxes.