August 28, 2006
BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND
The Tramuntana, or is it the Mistral, seems to have been blowing for the whole of August, and on Bank Holiday Monday shows no sign of abating. Digiscoping, and photographing butterflies has, with one or two exceptions, been frustrating.
We had a New Forest start to the weekend, on Friday afternoon we walked from Godshill cricket ground out to Pitts Wood and back, and on Saturday we joined the masses at Bolderwood and walked a large anti-clockwise circuit of Highland Water Inclosure.
The feature of both walks was the numbers of Grayling butterflies, dozens of them, and talking of butterflies, we had a Wall in the garden on Friday. We saw some decent birds on our walks as well, Redstart, Dartford Warbler, Crossbill and Firecrest among them.
We ran the moth trap on Friday night and our second Striped Hawk Moth of the summer was among the catch, and Hummingbird Hawk Moths have been in the garden most days.
Skeleton Tree in Highland Water Inclosure
Grayling, one of many
Digger Wasp
Striped Hawk Moth