France 2025 Day One

We left Portsmouth yesterday morning (29th July) and caught the ferry to Caen and then made our way to our overnight at Camping de Marcilly sur Vienne near the village of Nouatre, south of Tours in La Loire valley. It was just a brief stop as we head towards Le Moulin de Pensol further south. 

I got the Lepiled out for the first time and had a few interesting moths this morning before we packed up and headed on. We stopped off for a walk round the park and lunch at the town of Poitiers and arrived at the magical Le Moulin de Pensol at around 4pm. 

The rather stunning Catocala optata

Pale Shoulder

Pine Processionary

Black V-moth

Ancyclolia tentaculella

Good to be on the road again with the family. Our first stop. 

Mates Weekend

This weekend Jaffa, Helen, Lee, Rachel and Sue came down to visit. We did a couple of sessions at Pagham Harbour with a visit to east side on Saturday HERE and Ferry and Church Norton yesterday HERE. Highlights included a nice couple of juvenile Little Rings on Ferry, watching the juvenile Little Terns from Pagham Spit, a couple of Coal Tits at Mill Lane Pond and a nice selection of autumn waders in the harbour.

The moths were more exciting with the 10th Old World Webworm for Sussex (previous records HERE) and even more exciting it was our 600th species for the garden and 500th for the year.  We also had a nice selection of other 'migrants' including up to 4 Small Mottled Willows,  Radford's Flame Shoulder, Blair's Mocha, Marbled Green, Portland Ribbon Wave, Four-spotted Footmans, Silver-Y and the obligatory Rusty-dots, Rush Veneers and Diamond backs. On the local moth front Oak Eggars, Garden and Jersey Tigers and still quite a few Elephant Hawkmoths and a single Poplar Hawkmoth were crowd pleasers. Oak Processionary was also a new for site.

Great to get the gang together from far and wide. Brilliant weekend. 

Juvenile Little Ringed Plovers- really nice subtle variation between these two birds

Adult Black-tailed Godwit

Adult and juvenile Little Terns

Adult (above) and juvenile (below) Coal Tit

Common Seal

Old World Webworm

Marbled Green

Oak Processionary 

Radford's Flame Shoulder

The gang

A day at the Lodge

We've got more guests again this weekend (mates this time) so have spent all day completing the jobs-to- do-list around the garden.

There were a couple of new for year moths in the trap this morning, the highlight being the year's first Oak Eggar, now on 498 for the year. 

Yard birding highlight of the day was related to another insect emergence that sent the local Med Gulls and Starlings into a feeding frenzy with over 300 Med Gulls and 250 Starlings around and also a flock of 60 Swift also appeared. 

Oak Eggar

Narrow-winged Pug 

Rhombic Leatherbug- the most interesting addition to the garden pan species list today. In addition to the 598 moth species and 109 bird species we've also had 19 butterflies, 5 dragonflies and damselflies and 188 all other taxa species recorded HERE. Addiitonally there's the mammals which I still need to update but from memory we've had Bank Vole (only this week co-habitating with the goose), Common Shrew, Mole, Brown Rat, Wood Mouse, Roe Deer, Pipiestrelle Bat, Western Hedgehog, Red Fox and Badger (in the lane) so I make that a total of 820 species living with our family here. That's even before we count the mini-zoo, pets and domesticated garden and house plants, trees, shrubs and food plants! Its not my family and other animals but My family and the other 1000 species :-) 

While on the subject of the mini-zoo I had a bit of a shock this morning when I noticed that our Mexican Red Knee Tarantula had moulted and was lying on its back- the first time I've appreciated the size of it's fangs. Before we moved here we used to have 100 species in the mini-zoo (seems a nice round figure to maintain) but nowhere near that now. Will need to do some work on that in the winter to get back up to 100 species. From an holistic ecological perspective the domesticated animal space (pets and livestock) is an increasing feature of life on earth so trying to embrace that here aswell as all the amazing wild/naturalised biodiveristy. 

The growth speed of the goose (Oatmeal) is incredible- its no longer getting bullied by the ducks

I've harvested all the potatoes now and put Nicotiana and Verbena in the pots for the autumn hawkmoths. On the mini-farm front we have got Raspberries, Strawberries, Blackcurrants, Lovage and Tomotoes in the fruit bed, Pumpkins, Sweetcorn, Sunflowers and Peas in the Three sisters guild bed and in the seasonal bed we've got Rhubarb, Spinach, Carrots and the last of the onions with water melons in the polytunnel (the mini-farm raised beds below). 

On a quick side note, horrific scenes of starving kids in Gaza has been the backdrop to this week. Not sure about anyone else but I've never felt so powerless watching live streaming brutality on kids funded by our government and our tax money and realising that we have become the monsters that we were all supposed to stand agaisnt in the past (was that ever real?). Anyway, the benefit of finding a private home or land somewhere and just detach as much as possible from 'the system', divest from any investments which are contributing to the brutality, recycle profits into personal charity efforts rather than pay more tax that will go to support the IDF brutality, support as many local businesses and services as possible and put less money into the global markets and corporations overall (which are all Zionist heavily influenced not just the silly boycott list provided by the BDS) , work for yourself or a decent company and connect to nature and integrate as close as possible for resilience and therapy is IMHO the ultimate way of using our democratic powers to not support this brutality but instead to support regeneration and rennaisance of our planet and also to be able to withstand any harsh consequences that come to us all for our personal complicity in this horrific brutality if by any chance there does exist any type of natural justice on this planet. In the past, atrocities have been carried out and excused that people didnt know what was going on or were following orders on fear of death - that is not the case today, these atrocities are being live streamed to the world on a minute to minute basis and nobody has to follow any orders or are in fear of death if they do not comply with the system and it's processes . I really can't see any of this ending well- which is one of the reasons we are building a little nature fortress/ark here detached as much as possible from a destructive/declining system, although the main reason is that living naturally is just a really nice way of life- which is a much appreciated priviledge. 

A few leps in the week

My dad visited this week and we also had an urgent situation with Isaac so the only naturalising I've been able to do is from the garden. Birding highlights have been a Green Sandpiper on a couple of days flying around, 2 Common Tern going over yesterday and a Gray Wagtail bombing about. My last garden tick was Mute Swan at the end of June so stuck on 109 for the garden bird list at the moment. There's been up to 100 Barn Swallows and quite a few Sand Martins and still a few Swifts but otherwise not much in the way of migrants. If the summering Blackcaps. Whitethroats and Chiffchaffs are still around they are being very quiet and elusive.

The rest of the interest has been the butterflies and moths. The Purple Hairstreaks in the lane oaks have been flying recently and I've also had Painted Lady on a couple of occasions. Otherwise butterfly numbers are down with fewer Gatekeepers and Meadow Browns and the odd Red Admiral and Common Blue in our garden meadow. What with a return to the influnece of Atlantic weather the moth traps has been quieter but still getting new species every night for the year. Getting closer to our targets with 495 for the year and 598 for the garden list (seems to have a lost a couple probably as a result of Irecord data cleaning by the CMR). A few highlights below.

Latticed Heath

Twin-spotted Wainscot

Coxcomb Prominent

Campion

Fen Wainscot

Double-striped Pug according to Obsidentify but I thought it looked like a Maple Pug 

Reed Veneer- plenty of Bulrush Veneers, Calamotropha paludella and Pale Reed Veneers, Donacula forficella and a single Giant Water Veneer, Schoenobius gigantella this summer but this is the first Reed Veneer, Chilo phragmitella. Interesting that these similar looking species are all in a different genus. 

Southern Wainscot showing its tiara below

Sqaure-spot Rustic- the need is nigh! 

Small Mottled Willow (above) and Vagrant Piercer (below) are the best of the 'migrants' recently which has mainly comprised of a few Diamond-backs, the odd Rusty-dot, a single Radford's and up to nine Rush Veneer (last night). 

Weekend round-up

The highlight of this weekend was the first good autumn seawatch at Selsey Bill with 13 Balearic Shearwaters (now called Mediterranean Shearwater and lumped with Yelkouan Shearwater in the new AviList global taxonomy HERE) but I missed it all as had promised Jacob that I would play Monopoly and Chess with him this morning- and he beat me at Chess to boot. I still need any species of shearwater for the Peninsula and Manx and Balearic were seen today so hopefully I catch up with them at some point this autumn.  

I did manage to get a couple of hours at Church Norton yesterday evening HERE where the highlights were a cracking juvenile Kittiwake and a nice summer plumage Knot.

The moth traps were much quieter this morning after the cold front, rain and wind that brought the shearwaters in moved across the region last night. It was a lot busier on Saturday morning with over 120 species including my first Saltmarsh Plume. Now on 598 for the Lodge and 487 for the year. 

Juvenile Kittiwake

Adult Little Tern- quite a few juveniles have fledged now too 

Adult Sandwich Tern with Sand eel 

Juvenile Sandwich Tern 

Summer plumage Knot 

What looks like a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull (although not sure if can rule out juvenile Lesser Black-back on this view?- although the pale inner primary window is better for Yellow-legged but apparantely this feature is variable) 

Whimbrel and Sand Martins- around 200 Sand Martins appeared over the harbour in the evening

Saltmarsh Plume - a lifer 

Medmerry RSPB

Walked from Easton Lane Car park to the Stilt Pool and then onto the Breach along the beach. 60 species of nearly 1200 individuals, highlights included 200+ Sand Martins resting up on the Beach, my first Yellow Wagtail of the autumn, a juvenile Little Ringed Plover on Stilt Pool and 2 Greenshank and 7 Common Sandpiper too. There was also a male Dartford Warbler singing . Ebird list HERE

Another busy night in the moth traps back at the Lodge with over 100 species of approx 250 individuals with highlights including Marbled Green, Saltern Ear. the first Jersey Tigers for the year and Crescent. Now edging closer to the target 600 species for the garden with 594 after today and 478 for the year.

Sand Martins, mainly juveniles, gathering on the Beach

Greenshank- looks like an adult. 

Marbled Green

Saltern Ear

Jersey Tiger

Crescent

Channel Islands Pug- getting these almost daily now