Monday 13 August 2012

13 August 2012 Beachy Head Cloudy and humid S-SW 1/2 - 4

With the high pressure now drifting away bringing in cloudy humid conditions, this unfortunately didn't produce a noticeable fall of migrants, with Willow Warbler numbers still very low. Bob was ringing and watching in Whitbread Hollow and had just a slightly better morning than yesterday. Birds ringed are shown in brackets.

Met Office view
The area of high pressure that brought the recent warm and settled conditions to the UK now lies over Scandinavia. A distorted area of low pressure will remain in situ to the west of the UK for much of this week, bringing increasingly windy and unsettled conditions, as humid air and spells of rain are drawn up from the south.

Tawny Owl 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker 1
Nightingale 1 considered to be the same bird which has been present in the Hollow since the 5/8.
Common Redstart 1 (1)
Reed Warbler 4 (4)
Lesser Whitethroat 2 (1)
Common Whitethroat 6 (1)
Garden Warbler 6 (6)
Blackcap 5 (1)
Chiffchaff 1
Willow Warbler 5 (1)
Bullfinch 4 (1)

On the 10th August, Roger Haggar visited Shooters Bottom and recorded a large influx of various species of hoverflies. He was able to identify 12 different species during his visit and the following are some of the photographs he took. This large influx only seemed to have occurred on this one date as he had visited the site the previous day and also the day after and no noticeable numbers of hoverflies were seen.


Scaeva selentica is considered rather scarce and is a partial migrant.


Helophilus trivittatus is widely distributed although never common.


Eristalis arbustorum


Eupeodes corollae


Myathropa florea


Syrphus vitripennis
All these hoverfly pictures were taken by Roger Haggar