Turtle Dove

Lade - warm, dry and sunny, se 1 - Another belter of a day with a packed moth trap including 30 Cinnabars, but only Grass Emerald new for the year. The only bird of note outback was a Turtle Dove `purring` from cover in the willow swamp, a wondrous sound of summer and the first I`ve heard here for three years.

                                Grass Emerald

  Despite the beach being busy with day-trippers yesterdays confiding Bar-tailed Godwit defied my pessimistic prognosis and continued to feed actively along the strandline, completely ignoring any passing humans. I couldn't resist half an hour this evening watching it from the shingle bank as it probed about in the soft sand pulling out small marine snails, shrimps and the like.

                               Adult Bar-tailed  Godwit