Orange-tail ?

The orange-tail was in fact a juvenile male Redstart but in the bright sunshine the tail looked a lot more orange than red but at least we found something at long last. Only other birds of note at Shuckburgh were 5 Mistle Thrush, 3 Raven, 2 Green Woodpecker, Great-spotted Woodpecker and Coal Tit. Earlier we had a poor visit to the pond finding Common Tern, 3^rd year Yellow-legged Gull, 2 Yellow Wagtail and the over summering female Goldeneye hauled out on farborough bank while before that visit the only thing we found down the Southam Road was a Fox..

female Goldeneye

The weather became so sultry by mid-day we gave in to it and I spent the rest of the day watching the garden managing 2 Holly Blue, Comma, Brown and Southern Hawker and 2 Buzzard while going through last nights moth catch which produced 62 species from 240 moths including a record count of 43 Marbled Beautys.

After dinner at Dave’s I went lamping and sugaring for moths managing 5 Large Yellow Underwing, Sallow, Square-spot Rustic, Bright-line Brown-eye and 3 Copper Underwing to sugar solution pasted on tree trunks while lamping produced 12 Mother of Pearl, 2 Red Twin-spot Carpet, Grey Pine Carpet, 2 Green Carpet, Canary-shouldered Thorn, Willow Beauty and 2 Light Emerald, Barn Owl was hunting near the Water Tower along Ashlawn Road at 10:30pm.

With clear sky's looks like I'm for a couple of hours in the garden with a bottle of Glenmorangie for company exploring the universe.