August Wildife Sightings from a garden in Annan

August has been a busy month so our records may not be as complete as they could be! It has been nice to see some birds - other than house sparrows - about in the garden again, and a bonus to see the robin back. Some starlings are beginning to swoop about together - practising for murmurating later perhaps??

Monthly max is as follows:

Blackbird - 3 young

Bluetit - 3

Buzzard - 2

Coal tit - 1

Dunnock - 1

Goldfinch - 2 adult, 2 young

Great tit - 1

House sparrow -50

Jackdaw - 1

Pied wagtail - 1

Robin - 1

Starling - 12

Swallow - 1

Swift - 10, although we have not seen any since 16-8-16

Woodpigeon - 2

Wren - 1

The bees are still very busy around the garden - did mean to go out and do more of a bee count but just never got to do it! Our monthly max should be more than this but here it is:

Buff/white tailed bee - 3

Carder bee - 3

Honey bee - 1

Red tailed bee - 2

Tree bumble bee - 1

We have certainly seen an increase this month in the number of butterflies around the garden. As the buddleia finally came into full bloom the butterflies seemed to appear. Not seen as many painted ladies in the last couple of years as we have this year. The wall brown was a nice surprise too.

Green veined white butterfly - 1

Large white butterfly - 7

Painted lady butterfly - 5

Peacock butterfly - 2

Red admiral butterfly - 6

Small tortoiseshell butterfly - 7

Wall brown butterfly - 1

Moth trapping has been a busy occupation this month - but not always in our own garden! We have set traps in other locations and helped organise a community trapping in Canonbie, where 6 traps were set around the village. Experts were on hand to help ID the moths and a good day was had by all

At home we trapped 5 times this month. 

1-8-16 - 84 moths of 32 species

8-8-16 - 48 moths of 16 species. We did catch 2 new moths, a Juniper pug and a Dark sword-grass

 

Juniper pug



Dark sword-grass

14-8-16 - 77 moths of 14 different species, including one new species for us

 

Blastobasis adustella

18-8-16 - 25 moths of 10 species, with 1 new moth

 

Oblique carpet

29-8-16 - 23 moths of 11 species, but with 3 new moths

 

Emmelina monodactyla



Blastodacna hellerella

 

and the star of the show......

 

Caloptilia azaleella

This was the first record of this moth in Dumfriesshire, in fact the first anywhere in D&G!!

Our record will be added to the D&G list of moths and go on their website too. So, a brilliant catch for us and one of the 7 new moths for the garden this month!

While mothing we also saw 2 bats zooming around the garden. Rushing to get our bat detector from indoors we could then listen to the clicks when they came anywhere near.

 

DGERC species to look out for this month are:

 

Kingfisher Alcedo atthis

 

Primarily an inhabitant of rivers and streams, they are often just seen as a blue blur accompanied by a high-pitched call. hearing their call is often the best way to detect their presence and perhaps get a better view!

In D&G they appear to be more common in the east of the region.

 

Alder tongue gall Taphrina alni

If you look closely at an alder tree you may see "tongues" on some of the female catkins. These are pale at first, maturing to red/purple and persisting as brown withered tongues on old catkins. You can get multiple tongues on a catkin. The tongues are a type of gall - an abnormal growth on a plant caused by another organism. the gall causer here is the fungus Taphrina alni. D&G has few records of this gall so new records would be welcome.

Photos from DGERC