Since my last post the warm weather has produced another 2 new species for my garden list: Lunar Marbled Brown and a tiny micro: Dyseriocrania subpurpurella. On Sunday afternoon at Grove Ferry/Stodmarsh a drake Garganey showed well from the ramp, and from the Marsh Hide a Hobby was seen and after a wait the Jack Snipe came out into the open.

Lunar Marbled Brown

Dyseriocrania subpurpurella

 Jack Snipe

Another day and another new species for the garden: Powdered Quaker. Waved Umber and V-Pug were new for the year.

Powdered Quaker

 V-pug

The fine weather has meant the moth trap has livened up somewhat with 56 moths of 17 species this morning. Best was a rather worn Pine Beauty which was new for the garden, bringing the garden list to 603. Also Acleris cristana was only my 2nd record, with Buttoned Snout, and Scorched Carpet being new for the year. Yesterday morning I was down at Seasalter looking for Emperor Moths when I was lucky enough to see a Black Kite fly west towards Oare Marshes where it was see a few minutes later. I only managed a distant photo.

 Pine Beauty

The Streamer

 Black Kite

Yesterday a male and female Brindled Beauty were the first garden records for 13 years, and this morning a rather worn Oak Nycteolene was new for the year.

 

 Brindled Beauty (m)

 Oak Nycteolene

The only new moth for the year in the last few days was an Early Tooth-stripe, just 5 records in 19 years, so not that common here. This morning down at Stodmarsh a Black-winged Stilt showed well from the Marsh Hide.

Black-winged Stilt

Well it's finally warmed up a bit this week and moth numbers have increased. However, it took until this morning to get a: Chestnut and Brindled Pug which were both new for the year. At Dungeness on Wednesday we struggled with the wind. Not many highlights: the Glaucous Gull was seen on the power station and on the reserve. Three Black-necked Grebes were on the ARC pit, 10 Egyptian Geese were on the reserve and a Swallow, my first of the year, was seen over the water sports lake.

 The Chestnut

 Glaucous Gull