Flitting Fritillaries

A first trip to the famous Bentley Wood found the open rides awash with freshly painted Small Pearl-Bordered Fritillaries

This is the day flying moth Speckled Yellow which can be very numerous in some places of which this was one!

And another making a rather pleasing colour combination

The increasingly rare Duke of Burgandy

The underside of the Duke of Burgandy

Another day flying moth, the Burnet Companion

and another, the much less common Argent and Sable

Pearl-bordered Fritillary were fewer and already looking a little worn by comparison

Pearl-bordered Fritillary underside

Speckled Wood

Speckled Wood

This was my first "inflighter" Dragonfly, a Downy Emerald on the pond, one of several which all refused to land

Romsey Ospreys

A few years ago, if someone had told me I would be standing here photographing a 4th spring passage Osprey this year fishing in Romsey I would have said "I wish". Despite the continuing loss of land to housing and industrial estates in the locality, the odd area continues to boom with wildlife, my only concern being whether this perception is just an effect of squeezing both individuals and species into an ever declining suitable space.
However, there are times to just enjoy the wondrousness of the natural kingdom and its inhabitants and the last couple of days have been such times. Most spring passage Ospreys are in a hurry to get further north to their breeding sites, even across to Scandinavia, and just drop off for a quick fish here and there, but every now and again one hangs around for a while further south, non breeding birds who decide not to travel any further when they have a good supply of food where they are. Below is possibly one such bird having been here for 4 days currently. It will probably prove me wrong and disappear tomorrow.

Both times I have arrived in the morning I have been greeted with this sight, an Osprey with a fish heading off to its favoured distant perches for a leisurely breakfast where it has sat, if not molested by Crows, Rooks and Great Black Backed Gulls, for several hours.
The long waits have been enjoyable in their own way with noisy Kingfishers hovering out in the middle for sometimes several seconds before diving for fry. Sometimes I wondered how I failed to photograph one in focus, but I did. Three  pairs of  Great Crested Grebes have also been entertaining, one pair treating me to the full weed dance yesterday, another pair apparently have young though I haven’t seen them yet, and there are many territorial threats and battles to admire.
Eventually hunger or boredom got the better of the Osprey and it came out to fish and the shots below are all of it impressively hawking around for a suitable meal. After watching it sat for several hours, any time it stretched or flew its wingspan came almost as a new surprise

The shot below shows what I thought to be a broken primary on the right wing. The following day I thought there must be a new bird as it didn't show this fault, but on closer inspection the primary has just crossed over its neighbour part way down the shaft.

Like I suspect a number of the local birders who feel this area is their local patch, I often feel very protective of it and sometimes almost resent other people coming to look at it. However, quite a number of birders came to the small gap to view the Osprey and Hobbies and one thing I really got a kick out of was when even hardened birders were lucky enough to see it flying quite close, there was usually a collective "wow!".  And that is fitting, for it most certainly is a bird with the wow factor in spades.

When perching up to survey the water for meals Ospreys always seem to select the very thinnest of twigs at the very top of a tree to sit in. For a bird with a 6 foot wingspan, landing on these points is no mean feat and obviously requires total concentration

Even sorting these claws out when landing must take some doing. Ospreys have four equal toes, the outer ones can be opposed to point forwards or backwards for perching or carrying fish respectively.

This is a Carrion Crow for size comparison. Quite a brave bird really!

Air brakes on and into a hover to check out the lunch menu

Almost overhead and gliding at full stretch that wingspan would impress anyone

In a dive for fish the tail seems to be used as a brake and is cocked right back.

It is quite an imposing sight, and I wish I could have photographed the conclusion, but it always seems to take fish from behind a row of trees where autofocus cannot follow and manual focus fears to tread. Lunch captured it was back to the distant perch for a few more hours.....

Storm in a Bcup

Walking my friend's dog through Tadburn Meadows the other day it was almost impossible to ignore the fact that every Buttercup was a scene of frenzied activity. How many thousands of these minute little bronze coloured moths there were in total was almost impossible to guess at, but there were an awful lot. I was so impressed I took a few photos with my phone.
I was less impressed with the camera in my phone which I havent used before, but I guess it illustrates the point.

I don't know but I suspect this is a swarming of males awaiting a female to fight over looking at the gratuitous sex and violence going on in some of the other buttercups next door.
Rather more exciting, and a good reason for taking binoculars everywhere was a Honey Buzzard drifting south west against the wind. It was an odd direction for it to be travelling in but it was sufficiently low, and it was sufficiently good light (bright sunny morning) to pick up the correct tail banding quite clearly to confirm what was already obvious from the head/neck shape. My first of the year.

Fishlake Water Voles and things

A lot of birders don't have much time for Pheasants but I think they grace the countryside rather splendidly. This particular individual, unlike most of his rather silver backed compatriots, can look almost melanistic when just his head and neck are showing. Here calling and strumming, that strange low frequency noise from the wing beating probably carries further than the call.

A kestrel waits for the morning mist to clear having got a bit damp overnight. He was looking a bit fed up, but the later sunshine had him happily hovering for mice and voles.

And talking of voles, the Barge , or barge canal that runs alongside the meadows had always been a fabulous site for Water Voles. When my children were little we frequently compete to see who could see most on a walk and often got into double figures. (Talking to others recently, we were not alone in this activity!)

They are still here, but not in the numbers there used to be, and there are very few if any in the south end. This may be due to many things, the increase in Brown Rats which take over the tunnels, the previous presence of Mink, the increase in people and dogs using the footpath all being probable contributory factors.

If you sit still on the bank, in the right place, and for long enough, Water Voles seem to not notice you and often swim by very close.  

For quite a while these two Voles in particular seemed to always head straight at me and the major problem I had in photographing them was that they would very quickly be inside the 12ft minimum focussing distance of my lens

Apparently the Water Vole has no particular adaptations for an aquatic lifestyle and in continental Europe they are more likely to be found in meadows than riverbanks. To me they seem so happy in water that I can hardly believe that. Maybe the Wind in the Willows had such a forceful subliminal message that to divorce the inaccurately named "Ratty" from the river is unthinkable.

I am not sure if its my imagination, but the two pictured here seem huge in comparison to others locally, maybe they are just well fed.

Another funny thing about Water Voles is that people really like them, even the ones who have an aversion to rats and mice, and especially the ones who don't really know the difference! I have lost count of how many people have delightedly pointed out Rats swimming in the canal and declaring them Water Voles. I never correct them.

Over winter Water Voles will have been sociably sharing tunnels with all their neighbours and its only in the spring that they disperse and set up territories. This winter concentration has the advantage of warmth for one thing (they don't hibernate), but also allows the use of the best tunnels and territory for all. This disadvantage is that if Mink are in an area they can wipe out an entire population in no time.

Anyway. They are sort of cute.

Spring is in full swing, Orange Tips have hatched in large numbers and Green-veined Whites are out and about and not settling to often for a portrait

A very traditional sign of spring is the sound of the Cuckoo. What a remarkable coincidence it is that that the song of the Cuckoo sounds so much like its name... ahem. Fishlake usually provides my first Cuckoo of the year as it did this year, and in  fact often provides two, this year however its provided up to 4 males. In fact I seem to be hearing Cuckoos everywhere this year so I will be interested to hear how numbers across the country compare with previous years

Reed Buntings are also around in good numbers, they have been pulling last years Reed Mace heads to pieces lately, I'm told this is not to line nests with as I'd imagined, but to find grubs that are secreted within.