Four-spotted surprise

Up early and with daylight an hour away I gave the moth trap the once over with a torch just in case anything on the sides had not gone in and instantly spotted a footman species which was unusual since I’ve not caught one for awhile. Potted it straight away and took into the kitchen to ID and the alarms went off in my head. For the next 30 minutes I was trawling ID books and internet sites confirming I had a Four-spotted Footman.

four-spotted Footman by Bob Hazel

O my god according the holy bible on Warwickshire Moths by David Brown the county recorder there are no records for the county up to 2006. Don’t know its status since so I might have added to the county list.

What a great way to start the day but once we were at the pond my new found happiness soon evaporated as the place was dire with poor visibility which took most of the morning to improve. In 3 hours of searching all we had was Ringed Plover, Grey Wagtail, 30 Meadow Pipit, Chiffchaff, 2 Swallow, 2 female Goosander and a female Shoveler. We had a view of the albino Squirrel in toft shallows and a Red Underwing was flying between the visitor center and car park early afternoon.

record shot of the albino Squirrel.