Saturday 17th. May 2014

Firstly , many thanks to Rob for correcting the identification of the happy pair on the last post , Dock Bug / Coreus marginatus , not Forest Bug . Cheers Rob .
Since the last post , I did the full butterfly transect at High Elms , recording 12  species , but numbers were low on all apart from Brimstone (8) , but hopefully the good weather since then will encourage more emergence . I would point out that on the first part of the transect , the unfenced and fenced Conservation Fields , which makes up about one third of the transect , and was scalped to within an inch of it's life by the cutting contractors last year , produced a grand total of one Burnet Companion day flying moth . As usual , on the way round I checked the eaten Elm leaves for WLHairstreak

larvae , finding none again , but did find this larva , which was identified by Spock as that of the Copper Underwing moth . I hope no WLH larvae were about , as Spock also tells me that it is cannibalistic ! A chance meeting on Burnt Gorse with fellow wildlife enthusiast Rod was fortuitous , as he told me of a Treecreeper nest site , where he had been photographing the parents bringing food for their brood . Shortly after leaving Rod , the constant calling of juvenile Woodpeckers was heard ,

and it didn't take long to find the nest hole in a dead tree . Both parents were around , but only the

male was prepared to approach the nest whilst I was in the vicinity . So I just got a couple of shots and left them to their business . On the way home , I stopped at the Treecreeper nest site , and have

made a couple of other short visits since , as it is quite close to a public area , and didn't want to draw

attention to it . The youngsters look well on the way to fledging from the odd few sightings , so

keeping fingers crossed . After seeing that the nest at Sevenoaks Reserve had failed , it's good to see

this one doing so well , and thanks to Rod for putting me on to it .
At Hutchinson's Bank , the Glanville Fritillaries have mostly left the Cutting , and most sightings are on the bridleway at the bottom of the site . Visitors from as far a Ipswich and Heathrow have come to

see them and yesterday one of the Glanville males even tried to couple with a past it's sell by date Comma . The visitor from Ipswich suggested that if there was any offspring , it would be a Gramma .
Other firsts of the year over the last couple of days include ,

Small Blue , and several seen since ,

female Common Blue ,

male Brown Argus ,

and day flying Cinnabar Moth .

Another moth seen and identified by Spock , Silver-ground Carpet , thanks Spock .
On the way home for lunch today , I stopped off at the favoured nesting site of the local House Martins , having seen a couple around when passing by recently . It was good to see at least 8 pairs around the farmhouse , feeding and nest building . A couple of last years nest are intact , and were

probably grabbed by the first arrivals , but those arriving later were doing repairs , whilst others were

involved in the big build , starting over again from scratch , in between a bit of canoodling .