isle of wight day 2-killing time in the rain

Awoke this morning to the sound of rain against the orning. Not the start I had hoped for, but It did mean that I didn't have to go to the dinosaur museum on a sunny day, so that's where I would be going today. My Family had decided to go to the tank museum, leaving me to get to Sandown Via bus.
I was in for a treat though, as i headed to the toilet block to brush my teeth, I found a pair of cute baby goldcrests in a nearby pine tree. I ran back to the caravan for the camera, but sadly poor light and fidgety birds meant that I couldn't really get the photos I had wanted.

-Baby Goldcrest
After breakfast I headed for the bus stop. I had decided that I would be buying a weekly ticket, because I thought that I would be using quite a few buses over the week. I managed it OK and headed off towards Sandown to the dinosaur museum. The museum-called dinowight was built recently and is well furnished with various fossils and plastic models explaining the basics of paleofauna on the island.
As I was approaching the museum I spotted a male linnet on the grassy roadside, which surprised me as it was on the outskirts of Sandown, one of the more tourist towns on the island, and not where you would expect to find a farmland finch.
I managed a few photos, but once more the poor light was causing a bit of a problem for my camera, but I managed a few shots.

-Male Linnet
Inside the building I was disappointed to find that nothing had really changed, although they were putting up a new pterosaur display when I was there, the models were still top draw and the range of fossils on display were good too.

-Pterosaur

-plesiosaur leptoclidus

-eotyrannus

-Polacanthus

It was about 11 o'clock when I finished there, and with the rain still limiting my wildlife options I had no idea what I was going to do next. I decided to go to the bus stops and catch the next bus that came, that was a number 7 to Ventnor. When I got to Ventnor I decided to go and have a look at rew down nature reserve. I knew that the adonis blues were not going to be flying about, but another species found at the site is the pyramidal Orchid, the isle of wights national flower, because after all, flowers don't exactly run away in the rain. This time i had my map, and i had a look, so i actually knew what i was doing this time, and I found it without much bother.

The site was little more than a very large field, but at the end with the entrance there were loads of flowers. There were cornflowers and scabious as well as what I figured must be the pyramidal orchids, as well as others that I didn't recognise.

-pyramidal Orchid

-purple cornflower

-scabious

-pyramidal orchid

I walked around the site several times, secretly hoping to flush an adonis blue out of the long grass, sadly though it didn't happen. I did however find a sheltering marbled white, for the second day running, and this one allowed me to get some photos in a more natural position. It was sheltering under some ragwort but was nice to see, allowing me to get a good view of the marbling pattern from the outside.

-Marbled white

It's handy that the wight bus service produces a leaflet that tells you all the bus times, so I knew when I had a bus back to Newport, from where I could get a bus home. It was only when I arrived in Newport that I learned that my bus home was 45mins away. That left me stuck! I decided to head to shide chalk pit, a disused quarry now acting as a butterfly site, so that I could get a feel for it should I return on a sunny day when there may actually be butterflies there

It took me about 15 mins to get there but I was very impressed when I did-the quarry was a very impressive feature and I spent a few minuets taking in the scenery before i did a quick scout round.

It said on the sign that there were bee orchids here, something i had not been aware of until that point, but sadly I failed to find one, although I was very pushed for time. There were also apparently rare bats in the railway tunnel there, Neither of these things I found in my 10min scout round but i did find a few more pyramidal orchids.

-Pyramidal Orchids

I made it back for my bus, although it was very crowded, and made it back to the caravan OK, so a good day considering the lack of options due to the weather and the fact that I had no idea where any of the stops were!

isle of wight day 1-arriving on the island

we woke up near Southampton and were quickly on our way as we headed off to catch our ferry to the isle of wight. The day was bright, but slightly breezy but we managed to get our ferry and were quickly on our way to the isle of wight.
The ferry journey was not a patch on Arran last year, in terms of birdlife, in that there was only a cormorant to speak off, as well as a hand full of common terns flying past as we entered the harbour at Cowes. I would speculate that the terns were from the colony at Newtown estuary.
The drive down to our campsite seemed all too familiar even though it has been 4 years. This holiday was going to be different though. Since the isle is quite compact my dad had suggested that I use the buses to access many different wildlife sites, when my family were off doing other things. I had drawn up a map off all the sites with species that could be found there , and i had used an online records system to track down populations of insects that would otherwise not be well broad casted.
There was some degree off consistency with species that could be found at sites. Marbled white would be a new species for me, but there were a lots of sites that appeared to have this species. I even said to my dad-this holiday would be a disappointment were i not to see a marbled white.
It was ironic then that as we were driving round the campsite I spotted what appeared to fit the bill for marbled white fluttering around the campsite. I pleaded to get out of the car and was eventually allowed, and so i was able to track down the butterfly in question, hiding behind a hedge , and this proved that it was indeed a marbled white. so the first species that I saw after landing was ironically a new species for me, and a good record too, despite the fact that it spent most of its time at the top of a hedge!

-Marbled white
When I found my family, fully set up on our new pitch, My dad pointed out a buzzard circling nearby, I tried to get a few photos but sadly they didn't come out that well.

-Buzzard
my family went off to go and discuss the terms of our stay (?), and as i waited I spotted a very small blue appearance butterfly. It was very small indeed, even smaller than a common blue, but I didn't get a view of the inside of the wings but my suspicion is either a small common blue or a brown argus.

-Blue sp. Whilst i was watching that blue butterfly I spotted another butterfly flutter past me, another marbled white it appeared on the face of it. I was right again, but this one was not as shy as the other as this one landed on a caravan nearby-luckily its occupants were out!

-Marbled White

The marbled white left the caravan and flew over a hedge and into what appeared to be the children's play area. I was surprised to see that behind the play area was an area of rough grassland with mown grass paths, I think it was an intended nature reserve. There were quite a few butterflys there including common blue, meadow brown and large white as well as 6-spot burnet moth. At the bottom of the nature reserve there was a compost bin where there were a lot of thistles and a lot of gatekeepers to go with them. there was also a red admiral, which added a bit more colour. In bird terms there was a sedge warbler and a family of willow warblers.

-Gatekeeper

-common blue

when I got back to the caravan I was astounded to find a gigantic robber fly in the orning. It was about an inch long and kept continuing buzzing and attacking the plastic, until my dad let it out.

-Giant robber fly
after lunch we decided to go to Ventnor because it was a nice, sunny afternoon. I like Ventnor because of the common wall lizards that live in abundance amongst the town and surrounding beaches. When we arrived I had a look up one of the scrubby cliffs, and on the scrubby path I found a cricket of some description, which is always nice as we don't have an excess of crickets in Yorkshire, where as down here they are everywhere and many more grasshoppers!

-Cricket sp.

Back on the base, near the car I found my first lizard of the day, sunbathing underneath some twigs. it was easy to approach but hard to photograph because of the twig encroachments. so I tried to get some close-ups of its head, to try and highlights of the colours, which seemed more vivid than they were last time.

-common wall Lizard

we decided to move further up towards the end that we normally go to, so that my family could get out their canoes, I on the other hand opted to go for a walk along the beach to try and get some photos of more lizards. so here are the photos I managed-once again very vivid in colour and highlighting just how bold these lizards were in terms of how skittish normal reptiles are!

-Common Wall Lizard I decided to try and get to a nature reserve high above Ventor called "rew down" which has the only colony of Adonis blue butterflys on the island. I didn't have my map, and i didn't really know where to go, so I bluffed my way, taking turns not knowing where they would end up. Whilst reading one road sign I spotted this lizard-adapting to the human environment.

-Common Wall Lizard

After that I managed a few more turns then decided to just head back down and catch up with my parents. When I got to my map it appeared that my speculative road direction choices were well speculated, and had I carried on about 500m then I would have reached where I needed to be, but such is life

It was nice to see the lizards again, my first real views since the last time I was here and also had my first new species in the form of marbled white.

The Garden Recently

So whats been going on in the garden recently? well, because of the weather we have had quite a few bugs around, also there have been huge numbers of fledglings on the lawn. But we'll start with the bugs. First day of the good weather, there was a curious bee on the flowers near the garden pond. It only caught my eye because, when we were in cambridge, my dad said he would like to see a tree bumblebee (he has an interest in bees), so it was unfortunate that he was at work when one seemingly fitting the picture in his book, turned up in the back yard.
It would seem that there would be no doubt in the i.d except for the fact that tree bumblebees don't live this far north. It would however seem that there was nothing else it could be, so maybe its an abbarant record, or I am missing something.

-Tree Bumblebee
Also, on the pond, there were our usual large red damselflies. always a joy to see, and this year there were three, two males and one female around the pond. The one featured directly below was also so bold that I could get it to land on my finger. There was also a mating pair so we know that we will have some next year too. One of them was perched perfectly for a photograph, so I have also got my best ever photos of this species!

-Large red damselflys
On the bird front there has been a lot of activity with fledglings on the lawn, and also on the birdbath. There have not been as many baby robins this year, not like sparrows, which have been in excess, there was however this rather splendid individual on the birdbath.

-immature robin
on the wires behind the house there was a surprise with about 5 rather smashing juvenile mistle thrushes accompanied by two adults sitting. This is not a species that we have seen evidence of breeding before, as our records normally involve a crabby winter individual but there you go. Not all the birds in the photos are thrushes, as there were starlings also using the wire.

-Mistle thrush juveniles
and also on the note of starlings on the wire, we also had some on the lawn, about 4 babies surrounding an adult. they did look rather cute, and they were also bold enough to come to the window feeder, which mean't that I was less than 1 meter away from them.

-starlings

so as you can see, there has been plenty of stuff going on in the garden, only the warm weather is supposed to disssapear shortly, so it may not be around for much longer.

Elland gravel pits

It was a mild morning so I decided to take a bus trip to Elland Gravel Pits to see if there were any spring dragonflies about. To my surprise, the first thing that I saw upon entering was a rather stunning banded demoiselle, Which I was unaware lived this far north. unfortunatly I was unable to get a photo before it fluttered away up river. I decided to walk along the canal side, where I spotted a female blackcapp in a hawthorn bush. -Blackcap About 200m along the canal I found a path that lead away from the canal and into the woods, presumably to the river, so I followed it. When I arrived at the river I spotted lots of ringlets and a rather tatty speckled wood. There were rather a lot of ringlets, But they refused to stay still, until I found one on a bramble with its wings open. It was rather unfortunate that it was facing me rather than facing away so the photo doesnt look as good as it could do. -Ringlet Whilst I was walking along the edge of the river I got a shock at finding a brown hawker, which I had assumed was a late summer dragonfly, not an early summer. I assumed that it must be an early waker, but to my surprise I found several others along the riverside. I decided to go to the small pools near the feilds. Along the way I spotted more ringlets, plus small and large skippers and also an excess of burnet moths. When i reached the first pool I was dissapointed to find that it was almost barren, however a walk around it found me, what I thought at the time, a grizzled skipper, my first tick in calderdale this year, but it turns out the it was actually a latticed heath moth.

-Latticed Heath Moth The feild was full of butterflys and moths too. The moths being mainly 6-spot burnet and the butterflies including skippers and meadow browns plus ringlets.

-Small skipper Withing the long grass there were quite a few moths, but I had no idea what they were, so when I got home i looked them up and one of them is something a bit unusual apparently-a blackneck

-A Blackneck

Walking along the pools produced a variety of damselflies, including common blue, blue tailed and large red, but no dragonflies until I met up with the river again. Where I was surprised to find another brown hawker, so one was definatly not a fluke.

Walking back I spotted a gatekeeper butterfly in the shrubbery so I Followed it to try and get a photo.

-Gatekeeper I decided to walk back along the canal way so That I could see the pools that might have birds on them. on one of them I spotted a heron but when I got the binoculars out I found another three, so it must have been a family

-Grey Heron I also found some pretty spectacular butterfly catterpillars, proibably small tortoishell feeding on the nettles, but in some cases completly overunning the nettles.

-Caterpillar

When I arrived back at where I started I decided to go for a small walk upstrem to see what I could find. Almost immediatly I spotted a dragonlfy which was clearly not a brown hawker, as it diddnt have tinted wings. I Just couldnt manage to get a quick photo to allow for an I.d. I found a few veiwing platforms or something along the edge of the water, but they were old and rusty, so obviously not used very often.

However when i followed one I spotted another banded demosielle resting on a leaf.

-Banded demoiselle I tried to follow the dragonfly for a photo but kept loosing it. In one instance I stopped watching the dragonfly to find the demoiselle looking right at me. It had caught a midge or something and was just sat there staring right at me!

-Banded demoiselle I then spotted a second dragonfly hunting the river, this one was a brown hawker, but it was clear that the none brown hawker was quite upset about this as it kept attacking the brown hawker.

-Brown Hawker I spotted that the none brown hawker had moved upstream slightly where it was flying slower, so I headed up that way and was rewarded with an I.D photo proving that it was an emeror dragonfly.

-Emperor Dragonfly I watched it for a while before it began to head down to where I had been and then dissapeared. I waited a while before deciding to go and have a look where I had been. There I was rewarded with a stunning view of the emperor, but more importantly it was landed allowing me to get some shots, which were much needed.

-Emperor Dragonfly

So as you can see, it was a very worth-while trip, but I had to be heading home, so it ends here!!