First Moth of the year

It is always nice to see the first Moth of the year nestled amongst the egg boxes in the garden moth trap. In this case it was a Hebrew Character Orthosia gothica captured during the night of the 18th February.

The flight season for this moth is listed as March-early May for southern Britain. Therefore this one was certainly quite early, although I once caught one on the 26th January in 2008!

Month by month totals for this moth are as follows:
Jan = 1.
Feb = 2.
Mar = 23.
Apr = 25.
May = 0.

I might have to wait sometime for the next species to show up as we are now in a spell of very cold weather, labelled the Beast From The East.

Palmate Newt has bitten off more than it can chew

I noticed this newt having a feast on my garden path during the evening of 27th January. When it is fairly mild you have to be careful where you walk at night in my garden, as there could be several newts out feeding. If it turns cold they disappear again and presumably have to go back into hibernation. I checked the pond with a torch on the same night and could see numerous newts in there appearing very active.
According to the books, they arrive at their breeding ponds from their terrestrial hibernation sites in February, although in some populations they make their way to the ponds in late autumn and spend the winter in the water. Maybe mine have arrived early or they turned up in the autumn. I will have to check the pond next year in the autumn months to get a clearer picture as to what is going on.

RSPB Garden Birdwatch 2018

Here is the list of birds seen on Saturday 27th January between 08:00 - 09:00:

• Blackbird = 1
• Blue Tit = 2
• Dunnock = 1
• Goldfinch = 1
• Great Tit = 1
• Magpie = 2
• Pied Wagtail = 1
• Robin = `1
• Starling = 11
• Woodpigeon = 4
• Wren = 1

Species = 11, Total = 26. Slightly better than last year (S=9, T=20). Since recording began in 2001, the Species average is 10.5 and the Total average is 36.

The comparison chart below does not paint a pretty picture for the last couple of years. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Looking at the chart for the humble House Sparrow below, it looks like my garden is following the national trend.

On a more positive note, the trend chart for the Starling is more encouraging over recent years.

Lastly, I seem to be lucky with the regular visit of a Pied Wagtail each year. I wonder if it's the same one. This does seem unlikely as I wouldn't think they live that long. The first year I remember seeing one was 2003.