May 2023 — Just A Bird

At some point during the first few days of May the portcullis slammed down hard and the flow of migrants stopped abruptly, which is not atypical for Guernsey. There was still a few birds passing, including this early morning Wheatear at Vazon which posed on the wall outside the car. Almost certainly some of the best photos I’ve ever taken of the species - and I’ve taken a lot.

Mid-month was especially quiet with the only notable sightings I recorded being a Bar-tailed Godwit on the beach by Vale Pond on 9th and a first-summer Med Gull feeding in a field at Portinfer on 10th. The latter was very unusual in Guernsey with only a few May records of the species ever, although it seems that this may become more common.

There was a bit more activity later on in May, with a late flurry of waders, the highlight being a female Ruff at Vale Pond on 21st which was masquerading as something much rarer as it fed near the back against the sun’s reflections. There was also a Yellow Wagtail and Black-headed Gull there, plus a few Sanderlings at Pulias that day. On 23rd, a larger group of waders was feeding along the shore at Richmond comprising 18 Sanderlings, 8 Dunlins and a Grey Plover. A few land migrants were seen at Rousse on 24th including a late Whinchat and two Reed Warblers singing in the reeds at the Peninsula Pond, which is not a common place for them.

On the final day of the month I was pleased to see that the Little Grebes at Gallotin Quarry had bred again and there was also a male Tufted Duck present. Late in the afternoon, I managed to see the lingering female Hen Harrier at Mont Herault and watch it from the car quartering the fields across the valley. At one point a Marsh Harrier came up and had a little tussle.

Hen and Marsh Harrier - Mont Herault, 31 May 23

There were no rare birds in May but the insects more than made up for it with some excellent records. I had managed to scrounge some Barn Owl pellets to use at school for my Wildlife Club and was storing them in a takeaway box in the Science office. I brought the box out into the corridor to show the pellets to a couple of year 7s and, upon opening, two small moths flew out like the clappers! It wasn’t a huge surprise because I knew that some tineid moth larva like to feed on owl pellets. However, one of the moths was a typical brownish-grey colour, but I noticed that the other had a very clear white patch on its wing and was potentially very interesting. I watched it fly off down the corridor just as the bell went for afternoon school. I told the kids to watch where it went as I dashed into the prep room for a pot. It was still flying amongst the throng when I came back out, and I chased it round the corridor, small children being flung in my wake. It then chose to circle round and land on my tie and I managed to pot it up.

Upon checking the books and records at home, this was clearly a Tapestry Moth (Trichophaga tapetzella) which is a rare and declining species in the UK, and the first record for Guernsey since 1898. By the end of the month at least nine individuals emerged from the pot of pellets, and their exuviae could be seen sticking out. All these pellets were collected from a Barn owl nest site near Torteval Church in the south of the island. The species could be widespread in the island just very elusive, or perhaps there is just a small colony left.

Trichophaga tapetzella (Tapestry Moth) - from Barn owl pellet collected in Torteval, May 23

During May I paid a weekly visit to L’Ancresse to monitor the site where I discovered Coleophora scabrida cases last year. I wanted to make sure I caught sight of the adults when they were on the wing. After a few blank visits, I finally saw them at dusk on 27th and there were a lot of them. They were very tiny moths, just a few mm long, and they didn’t really fly, just flicked about their foodplant, very low down in the the short coastal turf. I took a few for investigation and managed some photos despite them being very difficult to snap. The forewing pattern was quite variable but they always had a cream costal stripe. The basic ground colour was dark orange with a further one or two cream-coloured stripes halfway across the wing, often broken by black scales. However, the moths were variably peppered with dark grey scales, so that most were so dark that the pattern was obscured that they looked quite plain grey (albeit with a constant coastal stripe). This pattern seemed to fit pretty well with Coleophora scabrida photos online. I dissected one male and, although I found it difficult to set very clearly due to it being so wee, it did have the basic structure that fits scabrida. So the ID seems pretty sound, although I have heard since that the situation with this species may not be as simple as it appears…..

Coleophora scabrida - L’Ancresse, 27 May 23

Out with the family for a wander round the beach and Lihou Headland, I picked up a couple of small shieldbugs from the vegetation just above the beach. They looked unfamiliar and so I took one home. A quick look saw that they must be New Forest Shieldbugs, a species that I knew had been recorded by others here in the last few years, and I had seen some pics recently on the local Facebook group. The more I looked though, things didn’t quite look right - slight differences in appearance, and perhaps not the expected habitat. I did a bit of digging and I came across a species from the continent Eysarcoris ventralis, which is very similar to New Forest Shieldbug and has been called White-spotted Shieldbug in English. There is at least one record of this from Jersey and I came to the conclusion that not only my specimen was this species, but all the pics of local New Forest Shieldbugs I could find seemed to be species also. Quite a few new shieldbugs are colonising Guernsey at the moment and this one seems to be too - indeed just the next day I found another one crawling along our utility room windowsill!

Just A Bird

Just A Bird

Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

Just A Bird

Just A Bird