Again there have not been many birds in the garden this month. The weather has been good so perhaps they are finding plenty food elsewhere. There are still some young birds coming in. I don’t often get a Song Thrush in the garden but a young one came in for a while. I have many Wood Pigeons and not surprisingly we often get young ones. Although they are the same size as the adult birds they stand out from them as they do not have the fluorescent green and purple at the neck.
We have the usual butterflies in the garden, Red Admirals, Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells. Last year I had a Comma Butterfly in the garden which was rare, but unfortunately I did not see one this year. However, I saw quite a few butterflies when out walking on Burgie Hill which is a good place to spot lots of varieties. Another good spot for seeing lots of moths and butterflies is walking along a stretch of the Dava Way. It was here that I saw the Vapourer caterpillar but I have yet to see a Vapourer moth. We again had lots of moths this month in the moth trap but I have only put up a Canary Shoulder Thorn which was rather attractive.
Although we were not at the coast very often this month I have put up a picture of a Guillemot. There had been reports of thousands of Guillemmots and Razorbills along large stretches of coastline and many of them were found dead. One day when we were at Kingston this month, the tide was in and there were hundreds of Guillemots and Razorbills swimming close to the shore. So far no explanation has been given for this phenomenon but it was rather upsetting to see as many would not survive,