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| Cleg |
House Sparrows, Starlings, Blackbird, Herring Gull, Swifts, an unseen but heard Blue Tit and House Martins were all seen on the short walk to Paula's. I messaged her to say I'd be there in a minute and she met me in her garden where we watched her House Martin family youngsters peer out from the nest above her upstairs window. She had just finished washing down her patio of the mess from above. Needless to say, a head was replaced by a tail at the nest opening and a fresh 'splash' of white was added to the paving stone beneath. Paula was not amused.
Once Neve was organised we headed out in the sunshine to walk the short distance to Barry Buddon cycle path. With the red flags on the military range flying, we would be limited to the cycle path which meant a few possible species of butterfly would be off the list of possibilities. A pair of Mallards flew low overhead and a Whitethroat pair sang from a small weedy area. Once onto the cycle path we wandered slowly westwards. We could hear Grasshoppers chirping and stopped to search in a small more open area. After a bit of searching I managed to find a few, and pointed them out to Paula and Neve. There were also a lot of Leafhoppers around. A few Ringlet butterflies and a Meadow Brown was spotted before Paula found the first of hundreds of Toadlets crawling around in the grass.
Neve spotted a hoverfly and a fly, though I failed to get reasonable photos of either with the camera deciding to play up, which wasn't particularly handy. We wandered on, finding more Toadlets, a few Bumblebees and Carder bees. One of the White butterflies flew on ahead of us. A Robin and a couple of Willow Wablers were in the trees by the track. A few Lesser Redpolls and Siskins flew over. There were plenty of small micro moths in the vegetation by the track and the occasional Ringlet was seen flitting off through the greenery. An Ichneumon wasp hunted low among the plants, the yellow patch on its abdomen making it easy to see among the stems.
A few Spiders, yet more Toadlets and more Grasshoppers were found, but the butterflies were proving elusive. With the sky clouding over and the wind increasing our chances of adding much were lessening. We wandered on a bit further with Neve asking lots of questions about wildlife and then asking me to set her questions for her to try and answer. A few more flyover birds were seen - Pied and Grey Wagtails, Linnets and Goldfinches. Woodpigeons and carrion Crows however made up the bulk of the birds in flight seen. We could hear fairly constant mewing of a young Buzzard from somewhere off to the south within the camp boundaries. Eventually an adult bird flew into view and circled above the field to the north.
Neve found a Six-Spot Burnet Moth but it flew off when I tried to coax it onto my hand to allow Neve a closer view. A short while later I did manage to get one which sat quite readily on my hand, before I passed it onto Neve's. As we walked back away from what appeared to be a possible rain shower, it rested at the base of her thumb for around 5 minutes before eventually flying off. Paula found a sheildbug which dropped further into the vegetation so it went unidentified. A black and yellow flying insect was identified from books at home as a Black Fungus Gnat, not something I've encountered before. Paula and Neve both managed to find a number of 7-spot Ladybirds. I found a smaller unidentified Ladybird and a small Ladybird-like Beetle.
More hoverflies and a wasp were seen as we walked back towards Carnoustie. I spotted a Yellow Shell moth but there were no more butterflies to be found. We were however persistently bothered by a few Clegs, thankfully without any of them managing to give us a painful bite. I even managed a photo of one on the path which showed well the patterned eyes of this large fly. I had mentioned to Neve that it was possible to tickle a bumblebee but any time I tried to show her, the insect would fly off. However, this bit of knowledge has resulted in her no longer being afraid of bees, and now that she knows that Hoverflies aren't Wasps she is less wary of them too. At the end of the walk I set Neve the challenge to take photos with her phone of 20 different wild creatures in the next two weeks of the school holidays. Paula will let me know how she gets on. I shot some video of Paula's House Martins and found a tiny wasp species hunting around in her garden before I headed for home after an enjoyable outing.
Encouraging an interest in nature is definitely a good way to spend a few hours on what would otherwise have likely have been a sort of 'nothing day' for me. Paula posted on facebook later that Neve had really enjoyed being on her bug hunt (complete with a photo of a smiling Neve with the Six-Spot Burnet Moth on her hand), though saying that they'd had an expert pointing things out was exaggerating more than a wee bit.
Despite the focus being mostly downwards I still managed to record 22 species of bird.
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| Hoverfly sp. |
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| Sciara Hemerobioides (a black fungus gnat) |
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| Common Green Grasshopper |
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| 7-Spot Ladybird |
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| 6-Spot Burnet Moth |
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| Chrysolina Polita (beetle) |
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| Whitethroat |