Far Ings Moth & Bat night 6-8-11

With trapping my own garden the previous night Mandy and myself decided to attend the local Moth & Bat night .We headed off for Far Ings early to spend a couple of hours in Ness Hide and wait for the Kingfisher but it didn't show but the young Water Rail did,with the un-forecast heavy rain showers we thought the moth night might of been cancelled but the rain cleared.With Matt Blisset running the show by starting off with the Bat walk Mandy went off with them to see what they could find and I stayed behind to help Alf with starting up the Moth traps.
With 3 species of bat detected/seen included Pipistrelle,Noctule & Daubenton's
Main moths of the night included
Bulrush,Brown-veined & Southern Wainscot & Bordered Pug.

Reed Warbler

Water Rail

Southern Wainscot

Crescent

Crescent

Yellow-tail

Lesser Treble-bar

Stenoptilia Pterodactyla

Yellow-tail

Humberston & Cleethorpes 3-8-11

With a nice hot & sunny day forecast for today we decided to catch the first train at 7.00 and have a day at Cleethorpes and Humberston to see what birds we could find.
Arriving at Cleethorpes just before 8.00 we set off for a leisurely walk down to Humberston while it was still high tide plenty of Common Terns were noted on the sand bars along with Oystercatcher and small waders presumed to be Sanderling but too far off just with binoculars.A quick call into Mcdonalds for a welcomed  breakfast.
A dog walker on the sand bar flushed a large flock of Black-tailed Godwit which was nice of them seems no dogs are allowed on the beach but nobody seemed to care as many dog walkers done the same throughout the day.
We reached Buck beck outfall where we noticed a large gathering of martins and stopped to take advantage of some flight shots and perched birds also noted here were Peregrine Falcon flushing everything,Little Egret and a female Sparrowhawk also a few Yellow Wagtail flying overhead and 11 Whimbrel was noted with their bubbly call after about a hour we continued on our way with a quick stop off to get a cold drink,on reaching Humberstone the confiding Ruff wasn't present but we sat and waited for a while with only a couple of Ringed Plover dropping in and a few more flyover Yellow Wagtails,Kids were around the edges of the pool so probably the reason for no Ruff (get back to school) :)
On our return back to Cleethorpes we stopped off and had a look arount the boating lake where some feral Barnacle Geese have set up home but we found a Pink-footed Goose in with the Greylags,one that didn't want to go home for the summer.With time pushing on we made our way to Ocean fish bar in Cleethorpes for our well deserved tea.
A great and enjoyable day out.

Barnacle Goose

House Martin

Pink-footed Goose

Sand Martin

Song Thrush

Swallow

Moths 30-7-11

With a warm night forecast of 16-18 all night I ran the Moth trap.
Mandy was up at god knows what time the trap was half empty for me when I came down.
With a few lifers caught such as Silky Wainscot,Bordered Pug & Brown-veined Wainscot being the top 3,
we caught 61 species identified and a few more to check up on,a few pics below of the Macro's.

Lesser Yellow Underwing

Small Dusty Wave

Dark/Grey Dagger

Brown-veined Wainscot

Broad Bordered Yellow Underwing

Copper Underwing

Silky Wainscot

Bordered Pug

Willow Beauty

Far Ings 30-7-11

With a bright sunny start today we decided on a day on our local patch with not a to early start,
arriving around 11.00.
Walking up Far Ings road we had a small warbler around Goldcrest size,dark green in colour on the upper parts with 2 prominent paler wingbars & with a call that I have never heard from a warbler before a bit like a young Dunnock tweet call but with not a long good view it flitted off back towards the Humber bridge and went back into the hedgerow please leave comment if you have any idea my thought was Pallas's Warbler but have never heard one call.
On reaching Barton reedbed entrance we was greeted by 2 sheep and the owners trying to get them back into the field with myself and mandy getting involved to block their path they ran into the road and back into the wood not what the owners wanted on the next attempt the owner got them back onto the road only for the fugitives to run round the owner and down the wrong way of Far Ings road think they got them back in the end.
With not much in bird life at the Monolith we carried on to the visitor centre photographing a pair of Southern Hawkers along the way with a few Brown Hawkers patrolling the reeds.
A couple of Common Tern on pursuit pit was about it was set about trying to photograph Swallows in flight with not much luck there either.
Whilst waiting for Mandy to return I noticed 5 birds flying towards me and took little notice thinking of them just being ducks until they flew over me and turned east to fly up the Humber that they were Black-tailed Godwits oh well that will teach me for just presuming.On mandy's return we set off along the Humber bank with Yellow wagtails flying over head and another Brown Hawker we headed for Ness Hide thinking it would be full due to the return of the Kingfisher but we was right but no locals,I over heard one talking about a duck she could see but couldn't ID it so I went to see and on telling her it was a Tufted Duck with 2 young her reply was no it isn't it's a Pintail as it's got a long neck well I just laughed to myself (No helping some folk),I can reassure her Pintail don't breed at Far Ings.
But with their noise and talking getting louder by the second mandy and myself just had enough and left with leaving them with some comments about noise and Kingfishers as if it would come and sit with that racket going on.We continued round to Target pit with more Tufted Duck present we made our way back onto the Humber bank and sat on the wall when I spotted a Wheatear by Chowder Carpark great a patch tick but 2 were present adult female and a Juvenile we set about some pics but proved to be harder than first though.
We walked upto the Phalarope spot :( and sat for a good while watching birds fly by which included 6 more Black-tailed Godwits flying west,Little Egret flew west,more Yellow Wagtails & a large mixed flock of Sand Martin & Swallow with mandy spotting a little star in the form of a Weasel poking his head up over the rocks but was unable to get any shots due to vegetation in the way.

Southern Hawker (Female)

Southern Hawker (Male)

Southern Hawker (Female)

Greylag 

Wheatear (Juv)

Wheatear

Black-tailed Skimmer