A bit of a mish-mash

Quite a bit of stuff has happened recently and it's a bit difficult to keep tabs on the various opportunities which present themselves whilst I'm out and about. Looking back through my recent photos has given me reason to put this post together. It's not much, but should serve to keep those, who might be interested, in the loop. Hedgehogs and Foxes continue to provide me with plenty of entertainment, once darkness falls. There is certainly an individual Fox which regularly comes to the feeding station plus, at least, one other that is far less predictable. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, are frequent and mob-handed at times. It is not unusual for three to turn up together, and the real number could be in excess of eight individuals during any given week.

Angling has certainly taken a back seat, whilst my dog-walking duties continue. I try to take "Mental Mylo" out twice a day, one session will include a decent wander, off the lead, so involves a drive in the van to get to somewhere suitable. This morning we went across to Hackinge Marshes, where we bumped into Neil & Andrew, who were birding, thus allowing me to enjoy a decent chat, catching up on what's been happening out there recently. Mylo managed to take a swim and discover a playmate during the couple of hours we wandered around. He also encountered his first, ever, Mute Swan which proved to be quite entertaining to observe. Mylo is a coward at heart, so the Swans were never in any danger and quickly established the upper hand.

What else would you expect when wandering the 
flatlands with a dog?

The garden moth trap continues to produce a roller coaster performance as the, never ending, NE winds ensure that flight conditions for moths are less than favourable. Last night was pretty good, under the circumstances, with a couple of additions to the year list. They being Rustic Shoulder-knot and a, tentative, female Gold Swift? (I'm very grateful to Stewart Sexton for confirmation of this id)

Migrants (?) were represented by four Silver Y's and singles of Pearly Underwing and Diamond Back. It would seem that I've finally stumbled upon a lens/camera combo which is capable of producing reasonable images of the moths I catch. By incorporating a 28 mm extension tube the results, thus far, are very encouraging and certainly a vast improvement of those obtained previously.

There's more gull stuff to be up-dated at some point in the future. A second nest has been established along Vine Close and I've got some better images of the 2nd cy Herring Gull with the weird, out of sequence, moult and eye/bill colouration.