October 26
WILDLIFE HIGHLIGHTS
There's just a few local wildlife photos to share in this post, which were taken at the beginning of October. This is largely because I was busy working the first two weeks of the month, whilst Bob headed up to Scotland, first to dog-sit and to see his son. Halfway through the month, I joined him and we had another lovely two weeks visiting some of our favourite sites up north, plus exploring a few new ones too. I'll share more photos from that trip in another blog.
It was lovely seeing a small flock of Blackcaps visiting our garden in Seaford at the start of the month. I was able to take these photos from the bedroom window using my big lens. Here's a lovely male eyeing up some seeds.
I had much better views of some of the females gorging on the seeds. You can see they don't have a blackcap at all, but a light brown one.
My focus on them didn't go unnoticed, though they seemed unperturbed, and went about their business of feeding.
The highlight of the month though was finding some Hummingbird Hawk-moth caterpillars on the South Downs. Neither Bob or myself have ever seen them before, and Bob has been wanting to see them for a very long time. This was probably one of the best years to look for the caterpillars as there have been so many sightings of the moth flying around this year.
Bob was out on a walk during the week and noticed some Lady's Bedstraw in an area beside the footpath, so he paid a bit more attention, knowing this was the food plant of the caterpillar. You can imagine how stunned and excited he was to finally see his first Hummingbird Hawk-moth caterpillar, having hoped for that moment for so long. Needless to say, that's what prompted us to return to the same place when I was free to join him a few days later.
In much the same way, I had my first sighting, walking along the footpath. The caterpillars are quite large and I spotted something that was a slightly different green to the vegetation. When I put my bins up to my face, I was thrilled to see it was what we were looking for. It's always much more satisfying to find something for yourself, though of course it was thanks to Bob's knowledge and previous find that I knew where to look. However, I ought to point out, it wasn't the same one he'd found a few days before, which was elsewhere.
It's a very striking moth caterpillar. I love the little tail at the end.
We started to explore that location a bit more closely, and not long after spotting the first one of the day, Bob found another. His one was noticeably more green and bolder in colour compared to the one I found.
I love the way its legs are clasped around the grass.
After some lunch, I returned to watch the first one again, in amongst the Lady's Bedstraw. I couldn't work out what the little bundle of black was at first, but then I realised it was poop.
As I mentioned before, the second half of the month was spent up in Scotland. We do love it up there, and of course with family living there, it's an added reason to go and visit whenever we can. This time, we mostly were in the Highlands.
I was quite surprised to see some Reindeer up near the ski centre on Cairngorm Mountain one day. I've not seen them there before. They originate from Sweden and were reintroduced by Sami reindeer herder Mikel Utsi back in 1952. Reindeer were in fact a native species of Great Britain and roamed wild thousands of years ago. However, they became extinct in Scotland 800 years ago due to hunting and the warming post-Ice Age climate. They are Britain's only free-ranging herd. There are now about 150 animals.
The first time we spotted them was actually in one of the car parks. The herd are obviously habituated as they come down to that area because someone puts feed out for them. After our walk up the mountain, we saw the same herd later in another greener space, which was a bit nicer for taking photographs.
You can find out more about our trip to Scotland soon.
