Saturday, June 05, 2004

MOTHS
Set the moth trap overnight and was pleased with the catch - not too many for this rusty mother! Species caught (in no particular order) - White Ermine, Bright-line Brown-eye, The Spectacled, Common Wainscot, Setaceous Hebrew Character, Buff Ermine, Dark Arches, Small Waved Umber, Small Dotted Wave, Marbled Minor, Heart & Dart, Large Nutmeg, Rustic Shoulder Knot, Vine's Rustic, The Nutmeg.


White Ermine(left) Buff Ermine (right)

GARDEN BIRDS
Spent the rest of the morning putting up an anti-cat fence around the border by the feeders. My neighbour's pussy has taken to hiding in the dense herbage and pouncing on my dickies - not on! So a few stakes and some chicken wire will do the trick. I've lifted the bottom edge in a couple of places to allow the local Hedgehogs access.

FOOTBALL
The afternoon was spent - what else - watching the footie! England 6 Iceland 1. Hey - you can only beat the guys put in front of you. A nice jolly heart-warming before our boys go and fail in Portugal!I'm not one of those who get carried away after such false victories - no shouts of 'bring on the Frenchies' from me. Nuff respect to our blue-clad rivals we will face next Sunday. They are collectively the best team in Europe - but as WC02 proved, they can have their off days. Let's hope next week they have one then!

BIRDING
The evening was spent owl watching on the Nene Washes with KAF. Mikey Wee had help lead the previous evening RSPB walk and they had enjoyed an owlfest, with Barn, Tawny and two juvvy LEOs! Bloody hell! So KAF and I wandered down there this evo (bumping into Tom Bailey and family). The Barn Owl was a cinch as usual, and second up was this cracking Tawny sat out in the open in the evening sun!


Tawny Owl

Now if owt shows the beauty of digiscoping - this has got to be it! Stuff all that hand-held nonsense. I'd like to see a shot of this owl hand-held when firing at an eight of a second! An adapter might be slower at times, but comes into its own when a shake free shot is required! Frickin brilliant or what!

We had to hang around to near dark for the LEOs and eventually got views of both young in the nearby trees. Not great, but enough to see the fluffy duffers with their little ear tufts. Great stuff.

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