Stonechat, Saxicola torquata The morning air is warm and full of moisture. The fells are lost in mist.. Swallows skim low over Kendal Race Course and out on the open fell the swifts are screeching, weaving low as they snap up insects. A kestrel calls.
It's a hide- and- seek morning out on Scout Scar. Birds have young to feed and a pipit's beak is stuffed with insect prey. The herb layer is fragrant in a warmth building to thunderstorms and downpour in the afternoon. Tiny moths and glimpses of colour: common blue butterflies , fritillary, and six-spot burnet moth..
It's a hide- and- seek morning out on Scout Scar. Birds have young to feed and a pipit's beak is stuffed with insect prey. The herb layer is fragrant in a warmth building to thunderstorms and downpour in the afternoon. Tiny moths and glimpses of colour: common blue butterflies , fritillary, and six-spot burnet moth..
Six-spot burnet is the motif of the morning, floating over seeding grasses. My Dracula moth, bold in scarlet and black with scarlet hind-wings and a dark furry body. Sunlight transforms his wings into a sheen of silver blue and green, their translucence warmed by scarlet and the purple flowers of thyme. You can see the network of veins which convey haemolymph through the wings, enabling moths and butterflies to thermo-regulate.
Dyer's greenweed, Genista tinctoria. A few years ago I found a spot where Dyer's greenweed grows on Scout Scar. Some years it's no more than a few plant's easily overlooked in a season of yellow vetches.
Insects are feeding, breeding and hiding from birds eager to snatch them up. I follow the flight of an ochre moth into a hawthorn where it hides and had I not seen it settle I'd take if for a dead leaf. Pale flickering wings come down in the grasses and become no more than a slight swelling on a grass stem.
Dyer's greenweed, Genista tinctoria. A few years ago I found a spot where Dyer's greenweed grows on Scout Scar. Some years it's no more than a few plant's easily overlooked in a season of yellow vetches.
Insects are feeding, breeding and hiding from birds eager to snatch them up. I follow the flight of an ochre moth into a hawthorn where it hides and had I not seen it settle I'd take if for a dead leaf. Pale flickering wings come down in the grasses and become no more than a slight swelling on a grass stem.
The soft sweet note of linnet comes from a mass of gorse and juniper with green berries. Willow warbler and a mystery note that sounds like breeding redpoll but I cannot discover. I often hear and see redpoll in flight. The alarm call of stonechat- I'm not far from a nest and the adults try to distract me. The light is poor but I know the bird will be high on a perch above the thorny bushes where the young are hidden. I creep forward, hoping to be low enough to show the bird clear. A beautiful female stonechat high on a dead branch above the green of juniper. A warm flush of colour on breast and belly, white about the neck, hint of white across her wing and a white rump patch above a dark tail. She flicks her tail and locks her claws around the twig, keeping my attention upon herself, away from her brood.
Stonechat, Saxicola torquata. Birders don't use Lain names as frequently as botanists do. I remember the significance of Saxicola torquata. Torque. a neckband worn by ancient Britons and Gauls, here a distinctive torque of white feathers. And I'm back amongst the early Bronze Age torcs of gold in The National Museum of Ireland. Or, a wonder of gold, neck bands of twisted gold.
When Sir John Hawkins, Elizabethan privateer and slaver, was hoping to scoop up gold from Guinea I wonder if he and his fellow merchant adventurers were aware of Irish gold and those beautiful gold torcs.
I like the way Latin names complement the English and sometimes give a fresh dimension on what to look for. Saxicola - picks up the stone, two stones struck together- that's the alarm call. And Torquata: torque, the distinctive neck ring.
Stonechat, Saxicola torquata. Birders don't use Lain names as frequently as botanists do. I remember the significance of Saxicola torquata. Torque. a neckband worn by ancient Britons and Gauls, here a distinctive torque of white feathers. And I'm back amongst the early Bronze Age torcs of gold in The National Museum of Ireland. Or, a wonder of gold, neck bands of twisted gold.
When Sir John Hawkins, Elizabethan privateer and slaver, was hoping to scoop up gold from Guinea I wonder if he and his fellow merchant adventurers were aware of Irish gold and those beautiful gold torcs.
I like the way Latin names complement the English and sometimes give a fresh dimension on what to look for. Saxicola - picks up the stone, two stones struck together- that's the alarm call. And Torquata: torque, the distinctive neck ring.
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