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Jun 9

Mystery bird

Icterine warbler, Hippolais icterina

Hippolais icterina

Early on Saturday morning I extracted this little beauty from the mist nets at our constant effort site (CES) near the River Kennet in Berkshire. At first glance, and from the location, you could be forgiven for thinking that this spring migrant that has flown all the way from sub-saharan Africa to southern England looks like a yellow Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus but its wings are far too long at 79mm.

It has the look of a Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus or a Wood Warbler Phylloscopus sibilatrix but it’s too big to be the former and rather too yellow to be the latter and lacks the prominent eye-stripe (supercilium) of both.

Have you guessed yet? After consulting our copy of Svensson, triple-checking the biometrics; wing length, margination, wing-point, wing-formula etc. Quickly taking reference photos and a quick call to our trainer, we concluded that it’s actually a rather rare (for southern England) Icterine Warbler Hippolais icterina.

Jun 1

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Marsh Fritillary

Marsh Fritillary, Euphydryas aurinia

Euphydryas_aurinia

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve taken over the role of Entomology Sub-group Leader for one of the conservation groups on Salisbury Plain. Each month I lead a BeeWalk in Area 15 which is one of the artillery impact areas in SPTA (C). Earlier in the year we plotted a 5km transect through a variety of habitat and each month a small group of us follow this route and count and identify the bumblebee species we find. The data is uploaded to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT)BeeWalk website. More info about BeeWalk here.

In addition to the bees (which so far have not been numerous) we always find something interesting and this time it was the freshly-emerged Marsh Fritillary Euphydryas aurinia. The day was overcast, great for macro photography in my opinion, as the clouds act as a giant softbox, but there was a real nip in the wind so they were rather sensibly keeping well hunkered down in the grass. To get this shot I had to lie on my belly and wait for opportunities for the wind to drop. Low light can be a problem so inevitably it was necessary to push up the ISO to 800.

As many of you will be aware the Marsh Fritillary has declined in its distribution right across Europe, and is now a protected species and therefore the object of much conservation effort. Fortunately Salisbury Plain remains one of its major strongholds in Wiltshire, the UK and Europe.

Perhaps on my next visit, if it is a little warmer, I’ll get lucky and capture a few images with the wings open.