CallumMac

[David M]

Love the seabirds, Callum, especially the puffins. I didn't know they nested round that way.

[CallumMac]

Thanks all. Bempton's a remarkable place. Not huge numbers of puffins (I once visited Staffa and Lunga, off the west of Mull, which were far better for puffins, being more rolling and grassy and full of rabbit holes) but you can get really close views of the full range of cliff-nesters. For me the huge colony of gannets is the main draw as you can get some great in-flight shots of them lifting off the clifftops.

Dave - yes it's very complicated! There are some bivoltine populations and some sites without rock-rose which have to be agestis. Then dotted amongst them there are still populations which are univoltine and using rock-rose, which makes it tempting to think they're artaxerxes - but the Mallet et al. 2011 paper which you may or may not have read (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... 10.00122.x - PM me if you want a full PDF!) suggests they are probably hybrids.

[David M]

I've seen plenty of gannets on the Isle of Man over the years but never one like in your first image. Is the reason it's marked like that because it is a juvenile?

[Wurzel]

Great shot of the sub-adult Gannet Callum (2-3 years old?) and also the behavioural shot showing regurgitation

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[philm63]

Hi Callum - Reading your diary with great interest. I am not that far from you in Bingley, West Yorkshire. Clocking up a few to visit locations from your posts. I used to multi-drop in the York area a long time ago, YO4 out to Riccall and Holme O S Moor and YO6 up to Helmsley and Kirby Moorside, so some of the place names are familiar. I am not familiar with Kiplingcotes, what is the nearest village? - Phil

[bugboy]

Hi Callum, I'm still playing catchup after my northern quest. Interesting to read about the Argus situation up there. Sounds like it's far from straightforward at the moment.

[CallumMac]

Thanks David! As Wurzel says, it's a sub-adult (thanks Wurzel!). They don't get the full adult colouration until their fifth summer, amazingly.
Thanks Phil! Kiplingcotes is a couple of miles north-east of Market Weighton, so not far from Holme-oSM. Definitely worth a visit though it may be past its peak for this year by now. Last week of June is the best time, when it's crawling with Common Blues and Marbled Whites!
Thanks bugboy! I'm a bit behind reading your diary too but I imagine you saw a few genuine NBAs on your travels!

14/07/2018 - North Cave Wetlands

With some of the big Hawkers around now, we decided to head to North Cave Wetlands for an afternoon stroll, to continue our quest to learn the dragonflies around the ponds there. There was the added bonus for me that I had seen photos on Twitter from NCW that appeared to show a male Essex Skipper. These arrived in Yorkshire a few years ago and are continuing to spread northwards, but despite checking hundreds of Small Skippers last summer and this, I was yet to see an Essex in Yorkshire!

Arriving at the reserve, we soon saw a good number of Gatekeepers - but all either out of camera range or not settling! However, the ragwort along the eastern edge of the reserve was proving very popular with a range of butterflies. We saw all four of Small Tort, Peacock, Red Admiral and Comma in quick succession, as well as all three Whites.

There were quite a few new dragonflies for us to figure out around the ponds - although the water is getting dangerously low. My favourite was this - a Ruddy Darter.

We moved on around the reserve to the butterfly area, which as the name might suggest, is stuffed full of nectar! The gatekeepers here were settling a bit more, mostly on bramble.

There were plenty of golden Skippers here, mostly on knapweed. I checked quite a few, all of them Small...

...but eventually, this little guy poked his face above a flower, and with that I had my first Yorkshire Essex!

[Wurzel]

Congrats on an Essex in Yorkshire Callum You've managed to catch the defining 'ink dabs' prefectly

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[ernie f]

Well done on your Essex Skipper, Callum.
Or should I say "Yorkshire" Skipper?

[CallumMac]

Thanks both

15/07/2018 - Pocklington Canal

With only an hour or two to spare yesterday between returning from a long bike ride and lighting the barbecue, we decided to pop out for a stroll down Pocklington Canal - a SSSI which winds its way through the East Yorks countryside for miles, eventually emptying into the Lower Derwent Valley NNR.

The upper reaches of the canal, just below its head a mile from home, are not navigable, and the banks are completely covered in Rosebay Willowherb and other flowers. In turn these were covered in Whites - most of which were Green-veined - as well as a few Ringlets, Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers, Small Tortoiseshells and Peacocks.

The undoubted highlight, though, was this pristine summer-brood Brimstone!

[millerd]

Apart from confirming their spread northwards, that is a great cheeky shot of the Essex Skipper, Callum!

Dave

[Wurzel]

Lovely shot of the Brimstone, they're always value for money whatever the season

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[philm63]

Thanks for the info on Kiplingcotes Callum. I was more intending a visit next year anyway; so will be looking at a few sites in that general area. My next holidays are in August and I intend to do both Fairburn and Blacktoft in the days I have available to myself
Your diary is good reading, especially as it relates to places I actually know in most cases - Phil

[David M]

Good to see a few Brimstones on the PD page, Callum, whilst your Essex Skipper is absolutely definitive for this species.

[CallumMac]

Thanks Dave. It's nice when they make the identification easy! It was such a hot day that doing them on sex-brand was impossible - everything had wings tightly closed. But getting down low and watching the knapweed paid off.

Thanks Wurzel, David. I have surprisingly few good Brimstone photos as my normal experience is of them dashing about madly - so it was lovely to see one so settled and approachable. If you look at the EXIFs you'll see that this one kept returning to the exact same thistle for over 15 minutes between my first and last photos!

Thanks Phil. I will be at Kiplingcotes later today, actually, so I will send you an update! If you're visiting Fairburn then it is well worth sticking your nose into the new reserve at St Aidans as well - just a couple of miles up the road. They have breeding Little Owls regularly visible right outside the visitor centre. Don't go on the same day as me though - I've never seen them in three visits!

[CallumMac]

20/07/2018 - Spurn Point

I spent every morning last week out catching Speckled Woods around East Yorks. We specifically needed females, to get some eggs from them for breeding purposes, but although we caught good numbers everywhere we looked, the sex ratio was almost 100% in favour of males. Perhaps a week or so too early!

On Friday, my partner's research group were heading out to Spurn Point for a day out. Plus ones were welcome and I'd never been to Spurn, so I decided to take the day off and join them! We parked at the new (and controversial!) YWT visitor centre, and a group of us decided to embark on the long walk all the way to the tip of the point.

We were barely out of the carpark when this Magpie Moth fizzed past us and dived deep into a hedge. This gave me a chance to experiment with the fill-flash techniques MikeOxon had told me about earlier in the week! I'm not 100% happy with the results, but undoubtedly the picture with flash was better than the one without.

We set off along the beach, and a Grey Seal drifted past, keeping a close eye on us.

After a while, the peninsula widens out and there are some lovely grassy meadows with plenty of nectar. We recorded most of the common butterflies here. Among them were several fresh second-brood Common Blues, which came as something of a surprise to me - this species is univoltine in many Yorkshire locations.

This individual appeared to be, possibly, a subtle aberration - with the spots on the unh elongated into ovals. I can't find this on British Butterfly Aberrations but it may be too minor to have gained a name!

It actually wasn't until processing these photos yesterday evening that I noticed the caterpillar of Diamondback Moth Plutella xylostella sharing the flower! Luckily, by chance, it was in focus in a couple of shots, including this - possibly one of the best 'arty' photos I've taken, and completely by accident...

Spurn was the first place in Yorkshire to get Essex Skippers and I was able to confirm a record of one, though not with a particularly good photo!

Representing the migrants, Large Whites were present in huge numbers, as were Silver Ys, but we saw only one Painted Lady and sadly no Clouded Yellows, which I had been hoping to show to the others.

Besides the Whites, the next most abundant species was probably Gatekeeper, but it was hot enough to keep them mostly on the move.

We started back for the visitor centre, recording a range of interesting non-butterflies on the way, including: Six-spot Burnet, Brown-tail, vast numbers of Cinnabar caterpillars, Common Darter (m & f), Oystercatcher, Snipe, and an obliging pair of Swallows actually nesting inside a bird-hide.

A really nice day out, and proof that you don't need to be a hard-core twitcher to enjoy a visit to Spurn!

[millerd]

Fascinating report from Spurn, Callum, somewhere I've always wanted to go since seeing how weird it looked on a map when I was a kid. I'm up in Wilberfoss at the end of next week, so may make that a day out!

Cheers,

Dave

[Wurzel]

Great report form what sounds like a great day Callum The heatwave could be the explanation for the possible 2nd brood Common Blue and possibly for the unusual markings?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

Sounds like a fabulous day out at Spurn, Callum. I didn't know Essex Skippers had found their way up there! If we get many more summers like this they'll be in Scotland before long!

Great selection of other wildlife too. Looks like a special spot.

[CallumMac]

Thanks all. I did wonder whether it might be a heat-shock ab rather than a genetic one.

23/07/2018 - my garden!

The best butterfly sightings are the ones that you don't have to work for! It's still roasting hot in Yorkshire. I was watering the garden this evening when I got in from work when my partner said "is that a blue?". She looked on bemused as I dropped the hose and hared into the house for my camera! Fortunately this particular Blue - a female Holly - wasn't going anywhere fast, having decided to capitalise on the droplets of water that had gathered on the leaves of one of our shrubs!

I love Holly Blues, and I don't think I've ever seen as many in one year as I have this summer. Hopefully this drought doesn't cause problems for the larvae of this brood.