Summer heat is finally here.

In last nights moth trap - Poplar Hawk Moth

Lapwing

Update on the Lapwing position.
One pair has 2 chicks - spotted today looking like half sized birds.
The other nest failed just before hatching was due - reason unknown - but the female now seems to be sitting on more eggs!
3 adults today chasing off a buzzard.

Redstart

A very pleasant surprise - a female Redstart in the garden just now!

Butterflies

Really good numbers of Brimstone, Red Admiral, Peacock, Small Torts already this year. First Orange Tip was on 15th April.
Yesterday (27/4) saw my first Speckled Wood

Lapwing

Good news from Kaat at the GWCT is that both our nests have hatched and the chicks are now on the grassland. This means I can now cultivate up half of the Stone curlew plot on the first so keeping with the management trial requested by the RSPB.

Early Spring

Today was really warm - 16 degrees in Bournemouth. Its only 8th of March for goodness sake!
But at least the floods are beginning to recede. Barn Owls will have suffered for certain, and what happened to the voles, and even the earth worms?

Meanwhile I saw my first Red Kite for a while - early spring and birds begin to move around - so I wonder where this one was heading to. Not a regular sight here yet but perhaps it will be before too long. Only last Saturday i saw one from the motorway just east of Basingstoke - and not the first time I've seen one there.

Another first today was a Brimstone butterfly - our vet Keith said he saw one toaday and reading Mark Avery's blog I see he  found one as well - so a widespread emergance for this spring insect. Just hope we dont get snow now!